Rebel populism

<p>Workers from the Syrian diaspora have maintained a presence in Lebanon for decades building multimillion-dollar apartment complexes toiling for backbreaking hours in grocery stores. From the mid-2000s liberalising reforms saw accelerating levels of poverty among workers often paid as low as $20 per day. Instead of 'opportunity' workers faced the prospect of indefinite economic exile the unending drudgery of hard labour and a constant struggle to make ends meet.<br><br> But in 2011 revolution came to Syria. Rural towns and villages exploded in revolt but even those workers who remained in Beirut found means to protest at a distance. Their movement which this book identifies as 'rebel populism' represents an early instance of an increasingly common global contentious political formation a form of mass politics that emerges not via a charismatic orator or developed ideological convictions but through the weaving together of grievances aimed at the ruling class.</p>