The Hizbullah Phenomenon: Politics and Communication - Softcover

Lina Khatib heads the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. She is the author of Image Politics in the Middle East (2013). Dina Matar is the Director of the Centre for Media and Film Studies at SOAS, London. She is the author of What it Means to be Palestinian (2010). Atef Alshaer is a post-doctoral and senior teaching fellow at SOAS, University of London and has published many articles and reviews on the literature, politics and culture of the Arab World.

"Unlike the states that can survive by coercion, social and political movements have to rest on intense publicity and self-presentation if they are to sustain and prosper. This book uncovers how the Lebanese Hizbullah has since its inception deployed an elaborate strategy of image-making to build its political communication. The Hizbullah Phenomenon is a valuable study on the interplay of culture, language, and the visual, on the one hand, and political mobilisation, on the other." -- Asef Bayat, Catherine and Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

"The Hizbullah Phenomenon marks a welcome shift in research from the kinetic to the communicative evolution of this complex political organisation. It analyses forensically the way Hizbullah shapes its discourses at both strategic and tactical levels. Penetrative and revealing, this book builds on the author's earlier work on the role of political imagery in the Middle East. A must-read for students, academics and policymakers." -- Neville Bolt, King's College London, author of The Violent Image: Insurgent Propaganda and the New Revolutionaries

'This book presents an original and engaging overview of Hizbullah's ideology and strategy, the ways in which it communicates key messages to its constituency, and the means by which it adapts its communication tactics in response to local and regional political change. Drawing on a rich assortment of primary and secondary sources, The Hizbullah Phenomenon is accessible, very well written, and appealing to scholars on Islamic Movements, Lebanon watchers, and students of the Middle East.' -- Michael Kerr, Professor of Conflict Studies and Director of the Middle East & Mediterranean Studies Programme, King's College London, and editor of The Alawis of Syria: War, Faith and Politics in the Levant