International Journal of Communication 11(2017), 4239–4255 1932–8036/20170005 Copyright © 2017 (Hatim El-Hibri). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org. Disagreement Without Dissensus: The Contradictions of Hizbullah’s Mediatized Populism HATIM EL-HIBRI 1 George Mason University, USA How should claims to embody “the people” be reckoned with when such claims issue from multiethnic polities? What social and cultural dynamics obtain when political actors involved in transnational and regional conflict make populist claims in divided media landscapes? This article explores these questions by examining claims to be the guarantors of national sovereignty (and at times the voice of a truly universal patriotism) made by Hizbullah, the Lebanese political party and militia. This article explores the contradictions in Hizbullah’s populist claims by analyzing two phenomena— the commodified forms present at the party-run “Museum of the Resistance” and its gift shop, and the televised announcement of the party’s participation in the Syrian war alongside the Asad regime. Doing so demonstrates how the new right-wing populism can embody the intensified articulation of ethno-sectarian idiom within contemporary capitalist formations. I build on Rancière’s theory of dissensus, arguing that groups such as Hizbullah both claim to speak on behalf of the “part who have no part” and also represent a form of capitalist intensification. Keywords: populism, Rancière, Hizbullah, television, museums, global media, Arab media, Lebanon, Middle East In May 2010, the Lebanese political party and armed group Hizbullah opened its “Museum of the Resistance,” set on a decommissioned guerilla outpost on a mountaintop. The museum gives an official history of this specific site and the broader conflict that it was a part of. This tension—between telling the particular history of Hizbullah, and the claim to national or even universal significance that the museum aims at—is a key aspect of the site. The museum stages and attempts to reconcile a contradictory claim— that the story of the Resistance is one of a particular historical experience, but also that the party’s extraordinary military successes are of and for the whole of the nation or even oppressed people everywhere. Claims to the nation are always difficult to make, and they play out in a way quite noticeable at a pavilion at the site called “the Outlook.” Visitors are afforded unobstructed views of the countryside Hatim El-Hibri: helhibri@gmu.edu Date submitted: 2016‒12‒12 1 The author would like to thank the Arab Council for the Social Sciences for their support, and Reem Joudi and Rami Deeb for their assistance.