Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the 'boundary work' needed to produce bottom-up statecraft, I argue that the process of 'unblurring' the boundaries between state and other entities through advocacy should be understood as a process of rewiring the relationship between citizens and authorities in the 'ought-to-be' way.

Paper long abstract:

The paper focuses on the 'boundary work' that is needed to produce bottom-up statecraft in Lebanon, in the area of environmental protection. Literature on the state in Lebanon has amply clarified the fact that neat divisions between state/non state and public/private are largely fictional, and that political clientelism, based on sectarian affiliation, is the primary channel through which citizens and non-citizens may access public services. This is not lost on ordinary inhabitants, who are acutely aware of the connection between corruption, the neglect of public interest, and these blurred boundaries. In the case of mobilisations for the protection of urban commons from privatisation and redevelopment, activists have identified this boundary in the person of public officials, who work in theory for the public good while in reality advance private and sectarian interests through the instrumentalization of state powers. If a Foucauldian approach understands the state as managing deviant populations (Thelen, Vetters and von-Benda Beckman 2014), progressive civic statecraft proceeds in the opposite direction, instating desired 'hard' boundaries around an envisaged state by managing 'deviant' public officials who are seen in breach of their perceived role as promoters of the public good. This, I argue, should not be seen as a process of depersonalisation or bureaucratisation, but rather one where relationships between people and power that are judged inappropriate contrasted to an ideal 'ought-to-be' state (not to be confused with the Weberian ideal-type) are severed only to be reconnected through more appropriate channels, for instance public consultations.