The intifada: Two assessments

Zeev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising ‐ Israel's Third Front. Edited and translated by Ina Friedman. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990. Pp.352. $22.95. ISBN 0–67530–3     

Evaluating Israel's Strategy of Low-Intensity Warfare, 1949–2006

This study examines the strategic and tactical logic of Israel's limited uses of force against Arab states and against substate actors. It evaluates the effectiveness of these policies, and their political and strategic ramifications. The study is based on a historical survey of these policies and on quantitative analysis of a dataset of the use of limited force by Israel over the 1949–2003 period. The findings suggest, first, that limited force strategies were occasionally used to foster escalation. In other cases, the mismanagement of limited engagements resulted in inadvertent escalation to full-blown wars. Second, domestic political and social considerations had important effects on the nature and intensity of Israeli uses of limited force. Third, Israeli reliance on offensive strategies has not only consistently failed, but produced adverse military and diplomatic side effects. Defensive and preventive measures have shown a much greater degree of success. The study concludes that a combination of military and diplomatic measures produces far more effective results than strictly military ones.     

The Institutional Dynamics of a Developmental State: Change and Continuity in State–Economy Relations in Israel

This paper examines the institutional dynamics of the Israeli developmental state, focusing on its transformation since the mid-1980s, when a deep and far-reaching process of liberalization began. In contrast to the conventional stance concerning the withdrawal of the state from the economy and the decline of its political and institutional capabilities to shape the structure of economic relations, our analysis suggests that the state has not retreated from the economic sphere. The important shift in state?Ceconomy relations lies not in the extent of the state??s involvement in the economy, but rather in the mode of its involvement. That is, institutional changes have to do first and foremost with the definition of the state??s objectives in the management of the political economy and the way it uses particular institutional instruments to attain those objectives. As we show, state agencies continue to play a crucial role in the economic arena. While certain institutional traits and practices of the classic developmental state have indeed vanished, there are also very significant lines of continuity in place that keep imprinting on state?Ceconomy relations. It is this combination of change and continuity that determines the modes of action of developmental states under conditions of neoliberal globalization.     

ISA Presidential Selection: A Discussion of Alternatives

During fall 2000, all ISA members will be asked to vote on a set of changes to the association's constitution. Most of the proposed changes are required to bring ISA's constitution up to date with current practices and association circumstances (for example, instead of having only the Editor of ISQ as a member of the Governing Council, one of the proposed changes adds the Editors of ISR and ISP to the council). In the course of examining and reflecting on possible changes to the constitution, the ISA Governing Council discovered that there was controversy among its membership regarding how officers are elected. As a result of this discussion, the Governing Council voted to put a referendum before the membership concerning the election issue and the other requested constitutional changes (though only the officer election issue is discussed in the following pages). To ensure that all members of the association are aware of what the election issues are, we have asked members representing the various positions to discuss their views in the pages of ISP . In addition, Craig Murphy, 2000–2001 ISA President, has written an introduction to the election debate that is printed below. ISA members will be asked to choose between these options in a mail ballot this fall.     

Bridging the two Sides of a 30-Year Controversy over Gender Differences in Perpetration of Physical Partner Violence

In the longstanding controversy over gender differences in perpetration of physical intimate partner violence (PV), one side argues for gender asymmetry (i.e., mainly men perpetrate PV) and the other side argues for gender symmetry (i.e., women perpetrate PV in similar proportions to men). This article proposes an empirical bridge between the two sides of the controversy, through a typology that inherently recognizes both the symmetrical and asymmetrical aspects of PV. This empirical bridge may facilitate a broader and deeper view of the problem.     

The Why and What of Intimate Conflict: Effect of the Partners’ Divergent Perceptions on Verbal Aggression

The aim of this study is to explore the effect on expressions of verbal aggression of intimate partners’ divergent perceptions of what the conflict is about (its subject) and why fight over it (its motive), together with the effect of the period of cohabitation. The study focused on the couple as the unit of analysis. A structured self-report questionnaire was administered to a stratified probability sample drawn from the general population in Israel, including 452 couples (904 men and women). Findings show that there is an association between the couples’ divergent perceptions of the conflict motive and of its subject, and that these disagreements amplify the partners’ aggression toward each other. However, the perception of conflict motive has a stronger effect on the expressions of aggression than that of conflict subject, while duration of cohabitation has a moderating effect on the divergent perceptions of conflict subject and on aggression between the partners. The discussion embraces both the theoretical and practical implications of the findings, as well as the limitations of the study.     

Proportional representation: An empirical evaluation of single-stage,non-ranked voting procedures

Rapoport, Felsenthal and Maoz (1988) have proposed three alternative methods to discern the fair proportion of seats that a party in a representative assembly ought to receive as a function of voters' preference orderings. All three methods assume that the ratio between the number of voters preferring party i over j to the number of voters preferring party j over i can be tested for consistency, and, if sufficiently consistent, can be appropriately scaled to discover the proportion of seats each party ought to receive. Using these methods as standards, we use exit-poll data gathered during the 1985 elections to the general convention of the Israeli General Federation of Labor (Histadrut) to examine the extent to which plurality- and approval-voting procedures provide a fair allocation of seats. The findings indicate that: (a) all three methods yield sufficiently consistent matrices of preference ratios; (b) the plurality- and the approval-voting procedures yielded significantly different proportional representations; (c) the proposed proportion of seats according to the three aggregation methods fall midway between the proportion of seats that the plurality and the approval procedures allocate. We discuss practical implications of these findings. Requests for reprints should be sent to: Professor Amnon Rapoport, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Davie Hall 013A, Chapel Hill, NC 27514.     

The Effects of Strategic and Economic Interdependence on International Conflict Across Levels of Analysis

This study develops a Social Network Analytic approach to conceptualize and measure interdependence across levels of analysis. This framework contains several innovations. First, it integrates "sensitivity interdependence"—the effects of changes in one state on other states—with "vulnerability interdependence"—the opportunity costs of breaking a relationship. Second, it measures interdependence at different levels of analysis and across multiple relationships. Third, it integrates multiple dimensions of interdependence into a single measure. I derive hypotheses from the realist and liberal paradigms regarding the effects of strategic and economic interdependence on monadic, dyadic, and systemic conflict. These hypotheses are tested via data on alliances, military capability, and trade. The findings provide robust support to the expectations of the liberal paradigm regarding the effects of strategic and economic interdependence on conflict. On the other hand, the expectations of the realist paradigm are not supported. I discuss the theoretical and empirical implications of this approach.     

Diplomacy in the media age: Three models of uses and effects

This study offers three conceptual models to promote systematic research into uses of the media as a major instrument of foreign policy and international negotiations: public diplomacy, where state and nonstate actors use the media and other channels of communication to influence public opinion in foreign societies; media diplomacy, where officials use the media to communicate with actors and to promote conflict resolution; and media-broker diplomacy, where journalists temporarily assume the role of diplomats and serve as mediators in international negotiations. The first two models, while previously defined, undergo serious revision in this study. The third model is new. This article demonstrates the analytical usefulness of the models through applications to various examples and case studies of significant contemporary diplomatic processes.