This article examines the consequences of center-periphery ties for local governance in Lebanon. It shows that strong ties to Lebanon’s governing regime – a multi-party cartel – became a necessary precondition to public goods provision following the country’s 15 year-long civil war. The article relies on qualitative evidence from 142 interviews conducted over several years of fieldwork in Lebanon. It employs a comparative case study of two urban municipalities, Sidon and Tripoli, with analogous pre-war politics and similar sectarian demographics. Using this case comparison and a shadow set of cases, it shows that the two cities experienced divergent types of war-era destruction, which shaped the ability of nascent parties to coopt local political institutions and elections. Party cartel-dominated cities were subsequently characterized, in the post-war era, by more effective mechanisms of candidate selection for municipal office. Parties select more reliably loyal agents to serve on their behalf in the local government, who then leverage partisan ties to provide public goods to their municipalities. The article also highlights the implications of party cartel control for local predation. It then discusses how even once-resistant local governments in Lebanon have gradually submitted to an equilibrium of party co-optation.