Salafist populism in the Lebanese crisis: MEMO in Conversation with Giulia Gozzini

People in Lebanon are angry at the level of state corruption and dysfunction, and Salafist movements are offering them an alternative. 

Nationalist populism has been sweeping the world in the last decade overturning traditional politics in countries ranging from the US, Hungary, India, Italy, Britain and others. But populism is not only something nationalists engage in, religious populism has also seen a rise in popularity in Lebanon. The decline in political and economic power of the Sunni community in the country, the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafic Harari and the withdrawal of Syrian troops in 2005 unleashed a new political Salafism, especially in the Mediterranean country's northern city of Tripoli. People are angry, very angry, Lebanon's general corruption and state dysfunction means the Levantine nation moves from crisis to crisis. Salafi movements are channeling people's frustration and embody anti-elite and anti-establishment politics that we see elsewhere. Israel's war on Gaza, Lebanon and the fall of the regime of Bashar Al-Assad in Syria has created a new opening for these movements - but who are they and what do they want? Joining us to discuss this is Giulia Gozzini. 

Gozzini is a PhD Candidate in Islamic Studies at Lund University. She holds a Master’s degree in Middle East and North Africa Politics from the University of Turin and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the University of Florence. As part of her Master’s program, Giulia completed an Erasmus exchange at Université Saint Joseph in Beirut. She has also worked as a Junior Research Fellow in the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Africa and Italian Foreign Policy programs at the Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and is a member of the editorial board of Maydan. Her research investigates the concept of Islamic populism and focuses on the study of Sunni Islamist movements in Lebanon, with a specific emphasis on the ideological and political evolution of contemporary Salafism, particularly in the context of the city of Tripoli. In her work, she proposes to adopt the concept of populism, considering the overlooked nexus between populism and religion, to investigate how religio-political populism relates to the ideological and social formation of Salafism.
Her current research builds on her Master’s thesis where she explored the multiple crises affecting Lebanese Sunnism and the subsequent appeal of Sunni populism and Salafism within the context of Lebanese sectarian politics.