Religious and Ideological Dimensions of the Israeli Settlements Issue: Reframing the Narrative?

Whether or not it will be possible to relocate settlers from the "territories" depends not just on the willingness of the relevant Israeli officials to authorize evacuation of some or all of the West Bank and Gaza given the violence it may cause, but especially on the thinking and the changing attitudes of the settlers themselves. Only by understanding the views of the current settlers — their motivations, their beliefs, and the differences among them — will it be possible to formulate a sensible relocation strategy. That was the focus of the conference's first panel.     

Strategic Change in Terrorist Movements: Lessons from Hamas

Existing literature is weak in explaining strategic change among terrorist movements, especially regarding the question of why these organizations often switch between contesting the external enemy, usually the government or the occupying power, and the internal arena in which they compete against fellow rebel groups. A rebel force facing diminishing returns from a formerly successful tactic with no equally effective tactical substitute in sight is likely to switch from conflict against a government to achieve dominance in the rebel camp. The terrorist movement will switch from the external to the internal arena even if such substitution compromises the overall goals of the rebel camp. The following article explores these dynamics in Hamas's strategy in the latest round of conflict between the movement and Israel.     

Between diffusion and territorial consolidation in rebellion: Striking at the hard core of the Intifada

The leadership of the Intifada in the territories, the United National Command (UNC), called for an organization of small units to maximize efficiency, and for the continuous proliferation of these organizational units to reduce the Intifada's vulnerability. A strategy of low‐scale violence, requiring little prior training and skill, facilitated wide scale‐recruitment.

To sustain a rebellion over a long period, there was a need to create territory‐wide organizations, which also provided services to a public which experienced great hardships. Territorial consolidation was never achieved, partly because the diaspora‐centered PLO feared potential competitors in the territories. Thus, the recruitment pool shrunk, and a vulnerable hard core emerged.

A strategy of organizational diffusion increases the need for centralized control, a function which the UNC failed to perform. Political strife within the hard core, increasing abuse of its power, and social lawlessness compounded the problem of vulnerability, and eventually transformed a popular Intifada into a manhunt.     

Policy entrepreneurship in developing countries: A systematic review of the literature

What can be learned from two decades of studies on policy entrepreneurship in developing countries? Policy entrepreneurship is a rapidly evolving analytical concept. A growing number of studies exploring public policy in developing countries use policy entrepreneurship as an explanatory theoretical concept. However, a substantial part of this research relies on qualitative case study analysis, lacking a comprehensive overview of the concept of policy entrepreneurship. This paper conducts a systematic review of the literature on policy entrepreneurship in developing countries. A total of 47 papers addressing policy entrepreneurship in the developing world, published between 1993 and 2017, have been analysed. The purpose and contribution of this paper are to offer a clearer picture of policy entrepreneurship in the developing world by concentrating on two aspects. First, we describe the characteristics of the studies on policy entrepreneurship in the developing world. Second, we analyse such studies, identifying the lessons that can be drawn on the phenomenon of policy entrepreneurship in the developing world. We conclude with an agenda for future studies, examining new theoretical, methodological, and empirical opportunities to advance the understanding of policy entrepreneurship in developing countries.     

Reviews

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