The Constitutionalisation of Party Unity: The Origins of Anti-defection Laws in India and Israel

In spite of a pronounced increase in the number of states that have adopted anti-defection laws over the past several decades, the literature on party unity in democratic legislatures has paid scant attention to understanding the conditions that lead to the adoption of such restrictive measures on the mobility of elected deputies. This article seeks to fill this gap. The authors provide a simple game-theoretic model to explain the passage of anti-defection measures in India, in 1985, and Israel, in 1991. These two democratic states were among the first to experiment with the constitutionalisation of anti-defection measures. Moreover, their comparison is important because although these laws were adopted under seemingly very different circumstances, they were supported with a strong consensus by both the government party, or coalition, and the opposition. It is argued that the reasons for the passage of the anti-defection laws in these two states were rooted in the strategic consequences of the changes that took place in the format of their party systems. The Indian and the Israeli cases show, respectively, that a dominant party system (India) and a tightly balanced bipolar party system (Israel) provided equally compelling incentives for rampant party switching between government and opposition, which therefore created an incentive for both sides to agree to, and adopt, a strict legislative measure to curb defections.     

A Review of: “Stefan Aust. Baader-Meinhof: The Inside Story of the R.A.F. Uwe Steinhoff. On the Ethics of War and Terrorism. Seth G. Jones. Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan. Ekaterina Stepanova. Terrorism in Asymmetrical Conflict: Ideological and Structural Aspects. Laura K. Donohue. The Cost of Counterterrorism: Power,Politics and Liberty.”

Approaches to terrorism and peacebuilding have a complex relationship with each other, which may be explained according to four categories outlined in this article. These range from blocking each others’ aims, nullifying terrorism, supporting a very limited, or a broader peace process. Each of these categories has implications for the inclusion and reconciliation of a wide range of actors and the hybrid nature of the emerging peace. This relates to the critical approach of using theory to create emancipatory forms of peace, which is used as a basis for the examination of the production of hybridity via the interaction of approaches to terrorism and peacebuilding in five cases in this article. These include Sri Lanka, Kashmir, the Middle East, Nepal, and Northern Ireland. We argue that “post-liberal” possibilities for a hybrid form of peace (which are inherent in such conflicts) offer a “post-terrorist” potential for peace processes.     

The religious experience as affecting ambivalence: the case of democratic performance evaluation in Israel

Religiosity increases both criticism and instability in democratic performance evaluations, and accordingly decreases reliance on these assessments in the construction of political self-efficacy, trust in institutions, and patriotism. This is due to the conflicting experiences that religious citizens of democracies live through; while their personal religious environment often adheres to many undemocratic characteristics, their experience as citizens contains assorted democratic attributes. These results, from heteroskedastic maximum likelihood models using data from a 2006 representative survey among Israeli Jews, augment the exclusive focus of the literature of democratic attitudes on the strength of attitudes, and shift attention from policy attitudes to other evaluative judgements.     

埃及变局后的以色列与埃及关系

2011年年初埃及爆发大规模抗议示威活动,导致穆巴拉克政府迅速垮台。埃及变局在以色列国内引起了极大的震惊,也严重影响到维持了30年之久的埃以和平关系。一年来,埃及和以色列双方围绕着《埃以和平条约》、天然气供应、边境安全等问题出现了摩擦,尤其是埃及民众冲击使馆事件给埃以关系蒙上了阴影。随着地缘政治环境的进一步恶化,一些间接因素也对以色列的安全构成了威胁,如埃及开放拉法口岸,接近哈马斯势力,同意伊朗军舰通过苏伊士运河以及坚决支持巴勒斯坦"入联"等无不引起以色列的高度警惕,以色列在中东地区面临着更为孤立的境地,国民固有的不安全感亦随之加剧。     

How has the Israel National Police perceived its role in counterterrorism and the potential outcomes? A qualitative analysis of annual police reports

Policing terrorism has increased in recent years. Correspondingly, policing scholars and practitioners have begun to consider the potential effects of this responsibility on the performance of the police and their relationship with the public. In this article, we use a qualitative analysis of annual police reports to examine how the Israel National Police perceived its role in counterterrorism and the potential implications. We find different perceptions in different periods and partial acknowledgment of potential outcomes. We consider the views of the police in relation to those of the public, and speculate on the differences between the three examined time periods.     

Creating other options: negotiating the meanings of citizenships

In this article, I explore the ways in which citizenship is reinvented and reinterpreted through local understandings and experiences. I show how Israeli citizens who had applied for another citizenship create a distinction between their Israeli citizenship, which they conceptualize in terms of identity and belonging, and their ‘European passport’, which they depict as a technical non-obliging document, thus neutralizing the challenge it poses on questions of national loyalty. However, the other sought after citizenship, which represents a legally binding attachment to a nation-state, paradoxically becomes a powerful symbol of freedom, embodying other life possibilities and allowing for an active negotiation of belonging.     

以色列国家安全委员会在国家安全决策中的作用

现代以色列国在中东政治格局中奉行极为独特的政治、军事与外交政策,尤其对国家安全有着十分强烈的追求,历来高度重视国家安全决策机制的建设。进入后冷战时代,以色列的国家安全受到来自内外部一系列因素的挑战,在此情形之下,以色列政府及时调整国家安全战略,建立起一整套维护国家安全的运作机制与法律体系。以色列国家安全委员会自1999年成立以来,其职能经历了一个不断完善的过程,2008年以色列议会通过的《国家安全法》是其重要的转折点。以色列国家安全委员会的设立和职能发展,在完善国家安全的顶层设计、增强国家安全决策的科学性与合理性、强化反恐怖主义与危机状态的管理和控制、推动国际安全事务的对话与合作等方面对以色列国家安全决策具有重要的意义。尽管以色列国家安全委员会存在一些制约性因素,但这个机构在以色列应对地区冲突与纠纷、打击恐怖主义、维护国家安全利益等方面成效显著。以色列作为当今世界国家安全体制比较完善的国家,其国家安全委员会正是维护国家安全的顶层设计,以色列国家安全委员会在国家安全决策过程中的一系列经验教训具有较为典型的意义。     

Reframing Sacred Values

Sacred values differ from material or instrumental values in that they incorporate moral beliefs that drive action in ways dissociated from prospects for success. Across the world, people believe that devotion to essential or core values — such as the welfare of their family and country, or their commitment to religion, honor, and justice — are, or ought to be, absolute and inviolable.
Counterintuitively, understanding an opponent's sacred values, we believe, offers surprising opportunities for breakthroughs to peace. Because of the emotional unwillingness of those in conflict situations to negotiate sacred values, conventional wisdom suggests that negotiators should either leave sacred values for last in political negotiations or should try to bypass them with sufficient material incentives. Our empirical findings and historical analysis suggest that conventional wisdom is wrong. In fact, offering to provide material benefits in exchange for giving up a sacred value actually makes settlement more difficult because people see the offering as an insult rather than a compromise. But we also found that making symbolic concessions of no apparent material benefit might open the way to resolving seemingly irresolvable conflicts.
We offer suggestions for how negotiators can reframe their position by demonstrating respect and/or by apologizing for what they sincerely regret. We also offer suggestions for how to overcome barriers by refining sacred values to exclude outmoded claims, exploiting the inevitable ambiguity of sacred values, shifting the context, provisionally prioritizing values, and reframing responsibility.     

The Israeli criminal justice system in action—Is justice administered differentially?

This study focuses on two major junctures in the Israeli criminal justice system, the preadjudication stage and the trial stage. The data are gathered from records accumulated during the period 1980 through 1992. For each year between 1980 and 1992, a random sample of 3637 persons, who had their first police contact that year, was drawn from the computerized central file at Israeli Police Headquarters. A total of 40,007 individuals, with a total of 97,000 records, constituted the study population. The results identify which criminal records were most likely to be terminated prior to adjudication and which records, once adjudicated, were most likely to conclude in conviction. Major emphasis was placed on the issue of nationality—being an Arab or a Jew—while the effect of other variables, such as the type of offense and the time period, were controlled. The criminal justice system was found to be less discriminating at the early stages of the criminal process, but as the offender moved along the process, the chances that nationality would play an important part increased. Authors are listed alphabetically and contributed equally to the writing of this paper.     

Reflecting Upon Etic and Emic Perspectives on Distributive Justice

The study of distributive justice may be examined using two research perspectives. The first, etic perspective seeks to unveil the common characteristics that characterize the spectrum of distributive justice phenomena across different cultures and circumstances. This perspective focuses on the universal aspects of justice behavior, namely, general laws and causal explanations. The second, emic perspective focuses on the ways in which justice behavior is expressed in specific socio-cultural contexts. This paper proposes a three-part reflection on these two perspectives on distributive justice. First, we review the ways in which the emic, culturally specific perspective has hitherto been incorporated into research on distributive justice; second, we examine the ways which the etic and emic perspectives are employed in two empirical studies on justice perception in Israel; and, finally, we suggest possible ways in which an extended emic perspective can be further incorporated in the study of distributive justice. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Social Justice Conference, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany, March 2005.