A conversation with Simon Kachar - lecturer in political science at the American University of Beirut, fellow at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs and author of 'Fouad Chehab and the Political Change in a Pluralistic Society'.

Click to watch: https://youtu.be/ntj65MQA9tM

Discussing the buildup to cross-communal power sharing and the national pact, 1958, the legacy of Fouad Chehab and a wider look at institutional building and foreign policy during the 1960s.

We also talk about the 1969 Cairo Agreement's long term implications, trying to replicate 'Chehabism' under those circumstances and 80 years of independence in retrospect.

Taped live at Aaliya's Books on Lebanon's Independence Day.

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Timestamps:

0:00 Intro

2:04 Birth pangs of this country

8:20 Sectarian model

14:18 Reflective of Lebanese society

19:36 1958

27:16 Fouad Chehab's career

45:00 The system, itself

49:02 Deuxième bureau

53:51 Relations to political families

1:00:19 Post-Fouad Chehab

1:07:34 Who we are & where we are

1:11:39 The same position

1:19:19 Religious family laws

1:21:06 Palestine

1:22:47 Successors

1:25:32 'Chehabism'

1:28:14 Alternative narrative

1:30:28 Other political figures

1:40:45 Foreign policy

1:45:37 Sarkis & Frangieh dispute

1:50:21 Political reform

1:51:57 Forming a political party