Zeev Rosenhek

Contesting ethnic immigration: Germany and Israel compared

After World War II, Israel and Germany adopted curiously similar policies of ethnic immigration, accepting as immigrants only putative co-ethnics. The objective of this article is to account for the main variation between the two cases, the resilience of Jewish immigration in Israel, and the demise of ethnic-German immigration in Germany. The very fact of divergent outcomes casts doubt on conventional accounts of ethnic immigration, which see the latter as deriving from an ethnic (as against civic) definition of nationhood. We point instead to the possibility of ‘liberal’ and ‘restrictive’ contention surrounding ethnic immigration, and argue that for historical and geopolitical reasons the political space for such contention has been more constricted in Israel than in Germany.

The Exclusionary Logic of the Welfare State Palestinian Citizens in the Israeli Welfare State

This article examines the ways in which exclusionary practices with regard to Palestinian citizens were institutionalized in one of the most central components of the Israeli welfare state: the child allowance scheme. Different child allowance programmes are studied in a historical perspective, analysing patterns of implicit and formal exclusion. Following theories which refer to the political economy of the welfare state, the article focuses on the connection between exclusionary practices and the shaping of the stratification structure in advanced capitalist societies. It is argued that the partial exclusion of Palestinian citizens has been patterned by the interaction between two analytically distinct logics: the Zionist logic of the Israeli state, and the inner logic of the welfare state as a stratificatory mechanism.

The politics of institutional reform: The ‘Declaration of Independence’ of the Israeli Central Bank

ABSTRACT Over the last two decades, increasing numbers of central banks in both developed and developing countries have gained independence from political echelons and other state bureaucracies, becoming important actors in the political arena with the capacity to significantly affect the configuration and functioning of national economies. Through a detailed process-tracing analysis, this paper studies the institutional turning point in the position of the Israeli central bank within the state institutional configuration: namely, the amendment of the Bank of Israel Law in 1985 which prohibits the central bank from providing loans to the government to finance budgetary deficits. The analysis focuses on the conditions that facilitated the institutional change, as well as on the actors and mechanisms that were involved in the process. This legislative amendment, which opened the path to the increasing independence of the Bank of Israel, was the result of the constitution of a new cross-national field of policy-making, comprised of both local and foreign political actors: the Israeli Ministry of Finance, the US government and a cross-national network of Israeli and American academic economists. Mechanisms of both inter-state dominance and expert power operated and interacted with each other within this field, producing synergetic effects that fostered the dynamic that led to central bank independence.

The political economy of Israel's ‘social justice’ protests: a class and generational analysis

In the summer of 2011, similar to and partly inspired by Spains 15M (indignados) movement, Israel experienced an unprecedented wave of socio-economic protest featuring tent encampments and mass rallies. Headlined ‘the people demand social justice’, the protest was surprising since distributive conflicts and social policy issues are peripheral to Israeli politics, and Israel was not in the throes of an economic crisis. These were not anti-austerity protests, but reflected the eroding life chances of young adults. Specifically, liberalisation of Israels political economy – which contributed to a substantial rise in the living standards of the parental generation of the middle class and improved their life chances in the 1990s – is now impeding inter-generational class reproduction for their children. We document significant changes in home ownership, relative incomes, and the value of higher education and other assets that were previously the key to middle class incomes and lifestyles. The impact of neo-liberal policies is evident, for instance, in the declining scope and generosity of the public sectors role in employment and housing. At the subjective level, on the eve of the protests young adults with higher education were less optimistic about their economic prospects than other groups. Finally, even though the protests appeared to be broadly consensual and inclusive, a closer look reveals that its core supporters and activists were drawn from social and political sectors closely associated with the middle class.

The politics of claims‐making by labour migrants in Israel

Abstract This article studies the effects of the Israeli migration regime on the prospects for the emergence of a politics of claims‐making by labour migrants, comparing the structures of constraints and opportunities to establish organisational frameworks faced by documented contract workers and undocumented spontaneous migrant workers. In spite of the exclusionary character of this migration regime, some groups of migrant workers have succeeded in establishing associations that attempt to place demands on the public agenda. Paradoxically, these organisations were established by the migrant workers that hold the most insecure and vulnerable status in the country: the undocumented spontaneous migrants. The paradox is explained by the differences between the institutional arrangements that shape the incorporation of documented and undocumented migrants. While the control mechanisms exercised both by state agencies and the employers upon the documented migrant workers impede their collective organisation an...

New developments in the sociology of Palestinian citizens of Israel: an analytical review

This article reviews and analyses new approaches in the sociology of Israels Palestinian citizens which began to develop in the early eighties. After comparing their common basic assumptions and those of more traditional perspectives, the central theoretical controversies between the newer approaches are examined. These controversies are discussed along three analytical axes: 1. the basic factors which explain the emergence and institutionalization of the ethno-national hierarchy (ideological principles and distributive conflicts); 2. the significant social actors in the shaping of majority-minority power relations and the social arenas in which this process takes place (state and civil society); 3. the use of general analytical frameworks which allow comparative research as opposed to the emphasis on the idiosyncrasy of the Israeli case. The article concludes by suggesting some new research topics and perspectives that might shed light on the dynamics of the subordinate status of Palestinian citizens in...

Policy paradigms and the dynamics of the welfare state: the Israeli welfare state and the Zionist colonial project

Explains the development of Israel’s welfare state, concentrating on the labour exchange system and housing. Links the development of the Zionist welfare state to economic and political conditions, in particular state‐building and the management of the Palestinian community within the state. Refers to literature on policy paradigms. Notes the stable institutional infrastructures developed by the Jewish community in Palestine and the Zionist labour movement, which led to an embryonic welfare state. Recounts the development of the labour exchange process and the public housing policy, describing how the policies reinforced statehood – settling immigrants into areas where Jewish presence needed strengthening and, at first, largely excluding the Palestinian community from access to housing and the labour process. Points out that, over time, the exclusion of Palestinians became unrealistic. Concludes that Israel’s welfare state was determined by political conditions of developing statehood – most importantly the exodus of Palestinians and the influx of Jewish immigrants.

Globalization, Domestic Politics and the Restructuring of the Welfare State: The Unemployment Insurance Program in Israel

The aim of this article is to document and examine the changes in the unemployment insurance program in Israel over the last two decades, attempting to elucidate whether, and if so how, they are related to globalization. Given the strong connection between the mode of operation and degree of comprehensiveness of unemployment insurance, and the extent to which labor is protected by the welfare state from absolute exposure to market forces, this social security program has significant and direct effects on the functioning of the labor market. However, it is often claimed that a major consequence of the globalization of production and capital markets is that, in order to maintain the international competitiveness of their economies, states are required to make labor markets more flexible through the diminution of the decommodificatory effects of their social security system. This connection might make unemployment insurance programs particularly vulnerable to globalization.

THE STUDY OF WAR AND THE MILITARY IN ISRAEL: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION AND A REFLECTIVE CRITIQUE

This article reports an empirical investigation of the study of war and the military in Israel and offers some reflective thoughts on our findings. We explore the social and political conditions under which academic knowledge about “things military” in Israel has been, and is being, produced. By academic knowledge we mean the publicly available theories, methods, and findings produced in universities and research institutes. Concretely, we refer to the plethora of articles, books, and edited collections published over the past thirty years in the social sciences. We do not, however, deal with research in clinical psychology or psychiatry, or with strategic studies, international relations, and conventional military history, although these fields have been sources of a good deal of research in Israel. By “things military” we mean social and cultural concerns related to (and derived from) the armed forces, war, and provisions for “national security.” Thus, we are concerned with studies related to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) as an institution that is characterized by certain professional and organizational features and that must constantly manage its relationship to a variety of social groups and representatives of the state. In a complementary manner, we refer to studies that explore the ways in which the state and society manage their relations with Israel’s armed forces. To be sure, in the past few decades a general weakening of the hold of security considerations on public policies and debates has been coupled with growing misgivings about, and questionings of, the military sphere or arena as the definer of Israeliness. Yet the military remains a central institution in Israel, and military matters continue to be of central importance for public and private lives. Indeed, this basic continuity is still evident in such diverse areas as the prominence of defense concerns for national policy and planning, the sheer quantity of resources still granted the IDF, and the importance of military service for many social and cultural groups. 1

Mobilizing globalization in local political fields: The strengthening of the central bank in Israel

ABSTRACT The strengthening of central banks is frequently considered as a direct consequence of globalization. This paper offers an alternative explanation which considers this process as the result of political processes taking place first and foremost within local political fields. Yet we consider globalization as an important component in the politics of institutional reforms, by serving as a resource mobilized by political actors striving to improve their position in the local political field. We show how the central bank in Israel appealed to the normative power of worldwide accepted institutional models, to the authority of international financial organizations, and to the disciplinary power of global financial markets, claiming that the adoption of central bank independence is imposed by the imperatives of globalization. We claim that the ability of central banks to conduct a credible politics of inevitability is based on their privileged location as nexus between the global and local fields.