Neo-settler colonialism and the re-formation of territory: Privatization and nationalization in Israel |
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Authors: | Haim Yacobi Erez Tzfadia |
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Institution: | 1. Bartlett Development Planning Unit, University College London, London, UK;2. Department of Public Policy and Administration, Sapir College, Sha’ar Hanegev, Israel |
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Abstract: | In this article we critically analyse the production of Israeli territory vis a vis the ongoing transformation of land and planning policies from ones based on pure nationalism to those purporting neo-liberal logic. Unlike the existing literature ? including the most recent critical body of knowledge on planning, resource management and public policy in Israel ? we contend that this transformation must be understood within the framework of settler colonialism. Our main argument is that the growing dominance of neo-liberal policies, expressed in the form of new public management, privatization of space, planning and territorial management, is bound up with Israel’s settler-colonial politics. Based on our detailed study of the dynamics of the privatization of space in Israel, we conceptualize the interplay between centralistic-national territorial management and new public management, free market-driven, privatization-prone, liberal planning and land policies as neo-settler colonialism. This concept focuses on the symbiotic relationships between these two vectors, with the latter providing a new mechanism of colonial control. |
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Keywords: | Israel settler-colonialism new public management decentralization privatization neo-liberalism territory land planning |
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