Mediated Stateness as a Continuum: Exploring the Changing Governance Relations between the PLO and the Lebanese State

Abstract

Since the 1960s, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has implemented an extensive governance project in Lebanon that is often regarded as contributing to the weakness of the Lebanese state. Challenging such zero-sum logic, this article explores the institutional interdependencies between the PLO and the Lebanese state and their different yet mutual interests in governance coordination. It conceptualises the relations between the PLO and the Lebanese state along a continuum of mediated stateness and thereby contributes to both the operationalisation of the notion of the mediated state and our understanding of the diverse empirical manifestations of the PLO’s governance in Lebanon.