Acknowledgements
This project has been a particularly long one, and it would not have been possible without the support of many persons. First, I would like to thank my PhD supervisor, Gilles Kepel, whose intellectual support during the six years it took me to complete my doctoral thesis (which eventually became this book) was invaluable. He patiently and steadfastly guided me through the perils of doctoral dissertation writing and opened doors for me in France and beyond. Secondly, I would like to express deep gratitude to Bernard Rougier, my second, unofficial supervisor, for his outstanding and incredibly interesting classes and supervision discussions, for so kindly sharing ideas and contacts, and for offering me support in times of doubt. I am also extremely grateful to Olivier Roy, my mentor as a postdoc at the European University Institute, whose intellectual curiosity and exceptional generosity remain a great inspiration.
Further, I wish to thank Morten Bøås, Kjetil Selvik, Ole Martin Stormoen, and Research Director Ole Jacob Sending at NUPI for helpful advice, unflagging support, collegiality, and patience during the many years it took to complete this book. My thanks go also to Bjørn Olav Utvik at the University of Oslo, who has always made himself available for guidance, and who was also part of my PhD evaluation commission – I also wish to thank the three other members of the evaluation commission, Donatella della Porta, Joseph Maïla, and Bernard Haykel – for insightful advice on how to turn a PhD thesis into a book. Further, my thanks go also to the three anonymous reviewers who provided highly constructive comments on the draft manuscript; and to Maria Marsh, Daniel Brown, Atifa Jiwa, Melissa Ward, and Rachel Imrie at Cambridge University Press for accepting the project and providing further assistance. I wish to extend a special thanks to Maria, Mel, and Rachel for their constant support, their professionalism, and their kindness. I also wish to thank Divya Arjunan and her team at Straive for their skilful assistance in producing and copyediting the manuscript.
Many people in Tripoli and Lebanon have gone out of their way to help me. I am indebted to my marvellous colleague and teacher, the late Abdulghani ʿImad, for his fine analysis of local and regional dynamics. I would also like to express my gratitude to Bernard Rougier, Patrick Haenni, and Sahar Atrache for generously opening up their contact books and sharing their knowledge of Tripoli with me during my first fieldwork in early 2008. I cannot overstate my gratitude to Salim Alloush, Majida al-Hassan, Tawfiq Alloush, and Nahla Chahal for their assistance during my many field trips to Tripoli. I have also benefited tremendously from the help of Fadi ʿAdra, Misbah al-Ahdab, ʿAbbas ʿAlameddine, Hazem al-Amin, Ghina and Mustafa Alloush, Soha Alloush, Samer Annous, ʿAzzam al-Ayubi, Mustapha Chahal, Khaled Daher, Nicolas Dot-Pouillard, Muhammad-Ali al-Dinnawi, Georges Drouby, Kamal Feghali, Samer Frangieh, Osei Bilal Kabbara, Kari and Elie Karamé, Dima al-Masri, Mira Minqara, Muhammad Nokkari, Muhammad Remlawi, Nir Rosen, Omar Sayyed, and Joseph Wehbé. Special thanks go to the many wonderful colleagues who have wished to remain unnamed. I am also extremely grateful to the many people I have met in Tripoli, and to all those who contributed insights and analyses in interviews but who prefer to remain anonymous. I have tried to repay their trust by remaining as objective and accurate as possible.
My doctoral project was made possible through a PhD scholarship at Institut d’études politiques de Paris (Sciences Po Paris) and the 2012 Prix Michel Seurat from Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). I have also benefited from a Max Weber Fellowship at the European University Institute, 2016–2018. Funding from the Norwegian Research Council through research grant no. 211844 is gracefully acknowledged as it supported the work that led to the publication of this book. I am also grateful to the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association (NFFO) for providing me with a project grant. This grant allowed me to take a short leave (sabbatical) to focus on writing this book and bring this project across the finishing line. I also would like to thank my NUPI group leaders John Karlsrud and Kari Osland for their great generosity and never-ending support. I am grateful to Centre d’études pour le monde arabe moderne – CEMAM – at the Université Saint-Joseph and its director Christophe Varin, for accepting me as a visiting researcher for many consecutive years; and to the American University of Beirut and librarian Ibrahim Farah for granting me access to the library. The Norwegian embassy personnel have assisted me on my field trips, in particular Ambassador Martin Yttervik, Ambassador Lene Lind, Ambassador Aud Lise Nordheim, Manal Kortam, and Ane Jørem.
I am deeply grateful to Morten Bøås, Bård Drange, Henriette Ullavik Erstad, Kristin Haugevik, Natasja Rupesinghe, Sverre Lodgaard, Lilly Muller, Kjetil Selvik, Ole Jacob Sending, and Ole Martin Stormoen, who have all taken the time to read and discuss my book manuscript at a seminar at NUPI in 2018. Further, I am grateful to Are Knudsen, Brynjar Lia, Thomas Pierret, and Kjetil Selvik, as well as Åshild Kolås, Einar Wigen, and Kai Kverme for insightful comments on my thesis during an earlier mock viva at the University of Oslo. Finally, I wish to thank Andrew Arsan, Janine Clark, James Fearon, Kristin Alve Glad, Thomas Hegghammer, Marte Heian-Engdal, Raymond Hinnebusch, Maja Janmyhr, Christine Lakah, Fred Lawson, Raphaël Lefèvre, Brynjar Lia, Rania Maktabi, Toby Matthiesen, Jon Nordenson, Elizabeth Picard, Glen Rangwala, Emily Paddon Rhoads, Laura Ruiz de Elvira, Truls Tønnessen, Frédéric Volpi, Hilde Henriksen Waage for commenting on papers that eventually became a part of this book.
I have benefited greatly from discussions with many wonderful colleagues and teachers, including the late Mariam Abou Zahab, Rivka Azoulay, Joseph Bahout, Amina Boubia, Asiem El Difraoui, Yasmine Farouk, Jean-Pierre Filiu, Maria Gabrielsen, Victor Gervais, Jana Jabbour, Stéphane Lacroix, Carine Lahoud-Tatar, Catherine Le Thomas, Loulouwa al-Rachid, Soraya Sidani, Farida Souiah, Leila Seurat, and Audun Kolstad Wiig at Sciences Po; further, Hala Abou Zaki, Karim al-Afnan, Frédéric Balanche, Synne Bergby, Laurent Bonnefoy, Hamit Bozarslan, François Burgat, Erminia Chiara Calabrese, Virginie Collombier, Teije Donker, Georges Fahmi, Agnès Favier, Carmen Geha, the late Wladmir Glassman, Anders Gulbrandsen, Rayan Haddad, Sari Hanafi, Peter Harling, Maha Kayal, Jamil Mouwad, Petter Nesser, Stefanie Reher, Safia Saade, Cynthia Salloum, and Martin Yttervik. I extend special thanks to Nayla Moussa, my co-author and close sparring partner at Sciences Po Paris.
I also owe many thanks to other colleagues at NUPI and the University of Oslo, including Stein Sundstøl Eriksen, Francesca Jensenius, Neil Ketchley, Jon Nordenson, Bård Kårtveit, Laila Makboul, Gunvor Meijdell, Sara Merabti, Theresa Pepe, Erling Lorentzen Sogge, Berit Thorbjørnsrød, Dag Tuastad, Julie Wilhelmsen, Khaled Zaza, and Ragnhild Zorghati – with apologies to any whom I might have forgotten to mention. My thanks also to Jeffrey Checkel, Sami Cohen, and Bruno Latour, for their excellent methodological guidance in the years of my PhD writing.
I am also very grateful to Teresa J. Lawson for her very skilful support in condensing the manuscript and for her kind encouragements. I am thankful to Ole Martin Stormoen for his assistance with the manuscript, and to Susan Høivik, Dani Nassif, and Maria Gilen Røyssamb for editing assistance. Let me also thank Marie-Rose Pereira, the research administrator at Sciences Po Paris; the staff at the Max Weber Programme at the EUI; Nadine Dada at the Sciences Po research library; NUPI librarian Elin Maria Fiane, as well as the NUPI communications team and to NUPI’s administration for valuable assistance.
I am forever grateful to my parents Anne Gro Nordli and Fred Arne Gade, for their unfailing support and generosity; to my siblings Kristin and Jacob, for simply being there, and for bearing with me all these years; and to Maria Gilani, Mette Mossige, and Ragnhild Ulltveit-Moe for their friendship. Finally, I would like to thank my partner Rilito Povea, for unequalled support and feedback on my manuscript, and for friendship and love during these years.
The study is dedicated to the memory of Abdulghani ʿImad and to the people of Tripoli – and also to Rilito and to our daughter, Rose Kirsten.
Figure 1 Map of Lebanon and Syria.
Figure 2 Map of Tripoli’s neighborhoods.
Figure 3 Map of Tripoli’s main sites.
