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Sectarianization
Various scholars have made a differentiation between "sectarianism" and "sectarianization". While the first describes prejudice, discrimination, and hatred between subdivisions within a group based on their i.e. religious or ethnic identity, the latter describes how sectarianism is mobilized by political actors due to ulterior political motives. The use of the word "sectarianism" to explain sectarian violence and its upsurge in i.e. the Middle East is insufficient, as it does not take into account complex political realities. In the past and present, religious identities have been politicized and mobilized by state actors inside and outside of the Middle East in pursuit of political gain and power. The term "sectarianization" conceptualizes this notion. Sectarianization is an active, multi-layered process and a set of practices, not a static condition, that is set in motion and shaped by political actors pursuing political goals. While religious identity is salient in the Middle East and has contributed to and intensified conflicts across the region, it is the politicization and mobilization of popular sentiments around certain identity markers ("sectarianization") that explains the extent and upsurge of sectarian violence in the Middle East. The Ottoman Tanzimat, European colonialism and authoritarianism are key in the process of sectarianization in the Middle East.

The Ottoman Tanzimat and European Colonialism
The Ottoman Tanzimat, a period of Ottoman reform (1839-1876), emerged out of an effort to resist European intervention by emancipating the non-Muslim subjects of the empire, as European powers had started intervening in the region "on a explicitly sectarian basis". The resulting growth of tensions and the conflicting interpretations of the Ottoman reform led to the 1840s sectarian violence in Mount Lebanon and the massacres of 1860. This resulted in "a system of local administration and politics explicitly defined on a narrow communal basis". Sectarianism arose from the confrontation between European colonialism and the Ottoman Empire and was used to mobilize religious identities for political and social purposes.

In the decades that followed, a colonial strategy and technique to assert control and perpetuate power used by the French during their mandate rule of Lebanon was divide and rule. The establishment of the Ja'fari court in 1926, facilitated by the French as a "quasi-colonial institution", provided Shi'a Muslims with sectarian rights through the institutionalization of Shia Islam, and hence gave rise to political Shi’ism. The "variation in the institutionalization of social welfare across different sectarian communities forged and exacerbated social disparities". Additionally, with the standardization, codification and bureaucratization of Shia Islam, a Shi’i collective identity began to form and the Shi’i community started to "practice" sectarianism. "The French colonial state contributed to rendering the Shi‘i community in Jabal ‘Amil and Beirut more visible, more empowered, but also more sectarian, in ways that it had never quite been before." This fundamental transformation, or process of sectarianization, led by the French created a new political reality that paved the way for the "mobilization" and "radicalization" of the Shi’a community during the Lebanese civil war.

Authoritarian Regimes
In recent years, authoritarian regimes have been particularly prone to sectarianization. This is because their key strategy of survival lies in manipulating sectarian identities to deflect demands for change and justice and preserve and perpetuate their power. Christian communities, and other religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East, have been socially, economically and politically excluded and harmed primarily by regimes that focus on "securing power and manipulating their base by appeals to Arab nationalism and/or to Islam". An example of this is the Middle Eastern regional response to the Iranian revolution of 1979. Middle Eastern dictatorships backed by the United States, especially Saudi Arabia, feared that the spread of the revolutionary spirit and ideology would affect their power and dominance in the region. Therefore, efforts were made to undermine the Iranian revolution by labeling it as a Shi’a conspiracy to corrupt the Sunni Islamic tradition. This was followed by a rise of anti-Shi’a sentiments across the region and a deterioration of Shi'a-Sunni relations, impelled by funds from the Gulf states. Therefore, the process of sectarianization, the mobilization and politicization of sectarian identities, is a political tool for authoritarian regimes to perpetuate their power and justify violence. Western powers indirectly take part in the process of sectarianization by supporting undemocratic regimes in the Middle East. As Nader Hashemi asserts:

"The U.S. invasion of Iraq; the support of various Western governments for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which commits war crime upon war crime in Yemen and disseminates poisonous sectarian propaganda throughout the Sunni world; not to mention longstanding Western support for highly repressive dictators who manipulate sectarian fears and anxieties as a strategy of control and regime survival – the 'ancient hatreds' narrative [between Sunnis and Shi’as] washes this all away and lays the blame for the regionʹs problems on supposedly trans-historical religious passions. Itʹs absurd in the extreme and an exercise in bad faith."