Questioning ?Ethnic Democracy?: A Response to Sammy Smooha

Ghanem, As’ad; Rouhana, Nadim N.; Yiftachel, Oren

doi:10.2979/isr.1998.3.2.253

Cited by 118 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The Israeli social scientists extensively discussed the definition of Israeli regime, but did not question its Jewish nature. Sammy Smooha (1997) defines the Israeli system as a stable 'ethnic democracy', and similarly Yoav Peled (1992) talks about an 'ethnorepubblican regime'; both see Israel as conjugating potentially opposite principles -ethnic preference and democratic universalism -but nevertheless maintaining a fair, 'liberal' balance between them (see also Dowty 1999; for a critique Ghanem et al 1998). For other scholars, the Israeli regime can be better defined as an ethnocracy (Yiftachel 2006).…”

Section: Citizenship Revisited: the Polity And Its Peoplementioning

confidence: 95%

Citizenship in Palestine: a fractured geography

Allegra

2009

Citizenship Studies

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This article deals with the Israeli -Palestinian conflict through an approach based on citizenship. The article considers the whole historical Palestine (Israel and the so-called Occupied Territories) as a unique unit of analysis, and suggests that the dynamics of citizenship in this area should be analysed through the exam of two fundamental dimensions, relating to membership and territory. In general, the example of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict offers the chance to address the conventional meaning of concepts such as 'state', 'democracy' and 'citizenship', underlying the complex dynamics of inclusion/exclusion of individuals and groups within a collective decisionmaking process. As far as Palestine is concerned, the centre of gravity and the horizons of the conflict are described through the notion of 'ruptured demos', suggesting new directions for comparative research and drawing the attention to the progressive demise of the so-called 'two-state' solution.

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Section: Citizenship Revisited: the Polity And Its Peoplementioning

confidence: 95%

Citizenship in Palestine: a fractured geography

Allegra

2009

Citizenship Studies

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“…The distinction between the procedural elements of the Israeli democracy, such as free and fair elections, and the structural ones, such as the protection of minority rights, has been highlighted in the works of Ghanem et al (1998) and Yiftachel (2006). The authors have concluded that, in Israel, nationality (Jewish identity) not citizenship is the criterion upon which individuals may claim ownership in the state (Ghanem et al, 1998, p. 256).…”

Section: Citizenship and Entry Into Israel (Temporary Provision) Law-mentioning

confidence: 98%

Law-making and the Securitization of the Jewish Identity in Israel

Olesker

2013

Ethnopolitics

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This article explores the role of law-making in the securitization of ethnic identities in Israel. The article examines the laws passed and bills proposed between 2000 and 2011 by the Israeli Knesset. The evidence suggests that despite consistent attempts to securitize the ethnic identity of the state, they have, for the most part, failed. A brief comparison between Israel and other liberal democracies also reveals that the banality of securitization, i.e. the use of ordinary rather than extraordinary measures in the securitization process, is not unique to Israel. This article demonstrates most clearly how the process of securitization contributes to the ease with which illiberal practices can creep into the democratic system without the need to resort to exceptional action.

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“…The privileged cohort outnumbers the non-privileged, so that elections can occur without disrupting the system of classification and discrimination. Scholars have advanced two labels for such states, with Israel as the central case: 'ethnocracy' and 'ethnic democracy' (Dowty, 1999;Gavison, 1999;Ghanem, 2009;Ghanem, Rouhana, & Yiftachel, 1998;Smooha, 1997). The key players in the debate over which term should be employed agree upon many of the characteristics of the 'beast' they seek to describe (Dowty, 1999, p.1;Gavison, 1999, p.3); at stake is the normative connotation of the label.…”

Section: So What Kind Of State Are We Talking About Exactly?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Israel in practice -contravenes equality and hence does not qualify as democratic (Ghanem, 1998, p.443;Ghanem et al, 1998;Jamal, 2002, pp.424-8). In the Israeli context, they draw attention to how the Occupied Territories operate within the state, arguing that the lack of citizenship rights for Palestinians means that we cannot understand Israel as a whole to be democratic (Ghanem et al, 1998, p2, 6;Yiftachel, 1999, pp.376-7).…”

Section: So What Kind Of State Are We Talking About Exactly?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ethnocracy Without Groups: Conceptualising Ethnocratiser States Without Reifying Ethnic Categories

Attwell

2015

Ethnopolitics

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Attwell, K. (2016) Ethnocracytheir populations. They do so by demarcating the population into ethnic categories. They apply labels to individuals and hierarchically order the categories to which they are deemed to belong, awarding one cohort more privilege than the other. Existing literature on such states has obscured the processes by which states reify and institutionalise identity, instead presenting it through groupist frames in which ethnicity is a pre-existing variable. Reconceptualising the doing of ethnicity as a process enables us to study internal dissent against ethnic privilege and consider its transformational capacity in inspiring new nationalist discourses.

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Questioning ?Ethnic Democracy?: A Response to Sammy Smooha

Cited by 118 publications

References 4 publications

Citizenship in Palestine: a fractured geography

Citizenship in Palestine: a fractured geography

Law-making and the Securitization of the Jewish Identity in Israel

Ethnocracy Without Groups: Conceptualising Ethnocratiser States Without Reifying Ethnic Categories

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