Critical Junctures, Religion, and Personal Status Regulations in Israel and India

Lerner, Hanna

doi:10.1111/lsi.12068

Cited by 32 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…In her discussion of the persistence of personal status regulations after independence in Israel and India, Lerner (2014) shows that an institutional path was created during the formative stages of independence, but that personal status regulations survived largely because of unintended decisions and "the absent minded missing of historical opportunities by the founders" (p. 410). In contrast, Künkler and Sezgin (2016) show a general trend in many African and Asian states toward increasing reliance on forms of legal pluralism and multiple jurisdictions.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In her discussion of the persistence of personal status regulations after independence in Israel and India, Lerner (2014) shows that an institutional path was created during the formative stages of independence, but that personal status regulations survived largely because of unintended decisions and "the absent minded missing of historical opportunities by the founders" (410). In Since in each case the path dependence in this area of state-religion relations spans two or three centuries, the role of deliberate design, and the ability of actors to get beyond past structures should not be exaggerated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Constitutionalism, Religion, and Education

Brown

Kissane

Madeley

2015

American Behavioral Scientist

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IntroductionConstitutions present themselves as new beginnings, as documents in which a political order is invented or reinvented. Of course, no constitutional document makes a political world out of nothing, nor can one be written that ignores all existing power relations. But the images that surround constitution writingthe nation assembled (in a convention or constituent assembly) and, more recently voting (in a referendum)-and the language contained in the general and the detailed clauses (suggesting that it is the constitution and the sovereign people that grant authority and do not rely on existing institutions) both produce the image of the constitution as not merely a political effect but also a cause.At a minimum, then, constitutions are portrayed as steering politics in new directions even if they do not make completely new orders. Writing a constitution has been likened to revolution (Ackerman, 1992); the very word suggests that something new is being "constituted." Even a slightly more modest metaphor--"rebuilding the ship at sea"--while it allows that the process is carried out with whatever is already on hand, still sees the work as absolutely foundational; the post-1989 order was one in which "The question of the moment was not 'What is to be done?' but 'Is there anyone who might be able to do anything-including defining what needs to be done? '" (Elster et al, 1998, 25) The idea that constitutions have deep effects is not merely a conceit of their drafters; scholarship on the meaning and impact of different constitutional arrangements is voluminous indeed. But despite high expectations surrounding them "constitutional moments" and the fact that the constitutions to which they give birth often succeed in provoking deep debate they often fail to inaugurate any significant change in important aspects of state-society relations.2 Remarkably, for all their self-proclaimed status as a new start, the best indication of what is in a given constitution is generally what was in the one it is replacing (Elkins et al, 2009). This is even the case in the critical area of relations between state authorities, religious bodies, and religious traditions where attitudes are often polarized. Our paper illustrates this claim as it relates to the field of education by examining three cases -Norway, the Irish Republic, and Egypt -where, despite the fact that the relevant constitutions attempted to mark the achievement of legislative independence, the entrenched interests of religious bodies remained largely unaffected and have remained so for long periods of time. The stakes surrounding the writing of a constitution can be tremendously high for religious institutions; this is, after all, when their relationship to the political order is defined. But we find that the documents tend to reflect existing arrangements and once written down, they become difficult to change because of the kind of deep consensus required for any subsequent change. This is especially so when it comes to clauses protecting religious educatio...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In her discussion of the persistence of personal status regulations after independence in Israel and India, Lerner (2014) shows that an institutional path was created during the formative stages of independence, but that personal status regulations survived largely because of unintended decisions and "the absent minded missing of historical opportunities by the founders" (410). In Since in each case the path dependence in this area of state-religion relations spans two or three centuries, the role of deliberate design, and the ability of actors to get beyond past structures should not be exaggerated.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constitutionalism, Religion, and Education

Brown

Kissane

Madeley

2015

American Behavioral Scientist

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“…Drawing on the Ottoman millet system, as adopted and transformed by the British Mandate authorities (Agmon 2017), the institutionalization of this confessional architecture in the Israeli postcolonial context has culminated in the official recognition of fourteen religious communities: Jewish, Muslim, Druze, Baha'i, and ten different Christian denominations. Each recognized religious community has its own state-sanctioned tribunals and religious doctrines, and each is legally empowered to exercise its jurisdictional authority over all Israeli residents who belong to the faith by birth or baptism-irrespective of their subjective religious beliefs or lack thereof (Edelman 1994;Halperin-Kaddari 2004;Sezgin 2004Sezgin , 2010Lerner 2014;Abou-Ramadan 2015;Shahar 2015;Amir 2016;Yefet 2016). In other words, in the Jewish state, it is not the individual who chooses religion, but religion that chooses the individual.…”

Section: The Israeli Personal-status Regime: a Blueprint Of Different...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Divorced from Citizenship: Palestinian-Christian Women between the Church and the Jewish State

Yefet¹,

Shahar²

2021

Law Soc. Inq.

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The vast multidisciplinary literature on marital dissolution tends to conceptualize divorce as a personal, individualist act that naturally resides in the domestic sphere. The article challenges this prevailing scholarly perspective by dissecting a substantially underexplored dimension of divorce as a citizenship-certifying act located squarely in the public sphere. Drawing on a pioneering qualitative study among Palestinian Christians in Israel as a case study, we argue that Israel’s divorce law, which locks Catholics into indissoluble marriages, should be recognized as a key state instrument for delineating the contours of citizenship—a boundary-demarcating apparatus between insiders and outsiders who are excluded from full and equal membership. The article provides novel insights into the complex interrelations between divorce, gender, and citizenship, showing how Palestinian-Christian women pay the price of a purportedly sex-neutral, no-exit regime. The article also illuminates a seldom-studied phenomenon we call “divorce conversion”: the act of changing one’s denomination for the sake of marital freedom, which is a hallmark of Palestinian-Christians’ third-rate status in the Jewish state. We conclude that divorce should be reconceptualized as a right to egalitarian female citizenship, serving as a basic precursor to women’s full participation in all spheres of life.

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“…Minor reforms were introduced over the years through judicial or bureaucratic means (for example, state recognition for marriage abroad, common marriage or couplehood agreements for citizens not adhering to any religion), yet the religious monopoly on personal status law remained unchanged. See Lerner 2014. 38. The impact of Western countries was dual.…”

Section: Inheriting Empty Signifiers: the Ottoman Milletsystem From Imentioning

confidence: 99%

From Foreign Text to Local Meaning: The Politics of Religious Exclusion in Transnational Constitutional Borrowing

Bâli¹,

Mednicoff²,

Lerner³

2020

Law Soc. Inq.

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Constitutional drafters often look to foreign constitutional models, ideas, and texts for inspiration; many are explicit about their foreign borrowing. However, when implemented domestically, the meaning of borrowed elements often changes. Political scientists and scholars of comparative constitutional law have analyzed the transnational movement of constitutional ideas and norms, but the political processes through which the meaning of foreign provisions might be refashioned remain understudied. Sociolegal scholars have examined the “transplantation” and “translation” of laws and legal institutions, but they rarely scrutinize this process in the context of constitutions. Drawing on an examination of borrowed constitutional elements in four cases (Pakistan, Morocco, Egypt, Israel), this article builds on research in comparative politics, comparative constitutional law, and sociolegal studies to provide a nuanced picture of deliberate efforts to import “inclusive” constitutional provisions regarding religion-state relations while, at the same time, refashioning the meaning of those provisions in ways that “exclude” specific forms of religious, sectarian, doctrinal, or ideological diversity. Building on sociolegal studies regarding the translation of law, we argue that foreign constitutional elements embraced by politically embedded actors are often treated as “empty signifiers” with meanings that are deliberately transformed. Tracing the processes that lead political actors to engage foreign constitutional elements, even if they have no intention of transplanting their prior meaning, we highlight the need for detailed case studies to reveal both the international and the national dynamics that shape and reshape the meaning of constitutions today.

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Critical Junctures, Religion, and Personal Status Regulations in Israel and India

Cited by 32 publications

References 42 publications

Constitutionalism, Religion, and Education

Constitutionalism, Religion, and Education

Divorced from Citizenship: Palestinian-Christian Women between the Church and the Jewish State

From Foreign Text to Local Meaning: The Politics of Religious Exclusion in Transnational Constitutional Borrowing

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