Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part 1 Fragmented citizenship in a colonial frontier society
- Part 2 The frontier reopens
- Part 3 The emergence of civil society
- 8 Agents of political change
- 9 Economic liberalization and peacemaking
- 10 The “constitutional revolution”
- 11 Shrinking social rights
- 12 Emergent citizenship groups? Immigrants from the FSU and Ethiopia and overseas labor migrants
- 13 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Middle East Studies 16
8 - Agents of political change
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- Part 1 Fragmented citizenship in a colonial frontier society
- Part 2 The frontier reopens
- Part 3 The emergence of civil society
- 8 Agents of political change
- 9 Economic liberalization and peacemaking
- 10 The “constitutional revolution”
- 11 Shrinking social rights
- 12 Emergent citizenship groups? Immigrants from the FSU and Ethiopia and overseas labor migrants
- 13 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Middle East Studies 16
Summary
Ian Lustick has listed three conditions as necessary in order “to overthrow an established ideologically hegemonic conception or explain its breakdown”:
– A severe contradiction between the conception advanced as hegemonic and the stubborn realities it purports to describe;
– An appropriately fashioned alternative interpretation of political real ity capable of reorganizing competition to the advantage of particular groups;
– Dedicated political-ideological entrepreneurs who can operate successfully where fundamental assumptions of political life have been thrown open to question, and who see better opportunities in competition over basic “rules of the game” than in competition for marginal advantage 123–4)
So far in this book we have shown how the republican citizenship discourse had been confronted with greater and greater difficulties in trying to balance the “stubborn realities” of Israel's hierarchical and “sticky” incorporation regime with the democratic aspects of its government. We have also described the two competing conceptions vying to take the place of the republican discourse as the hegemonic conception – the ethno-national and liberal discourses – and the groups that stood to gain from a redefinition of the rules of the game in one or the other direction. In this chapter we provide a glimpse into the sense of malaise that came to afflict important sections of the veteran Ashkenazi elite, the main bearer and beneficiary of the republican discourse, and then focus on the political entrepreneurs who have been, or sought to be, the agents of change in a liberal direction.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Being IsraeliThe Dynamics of Multiple Citizenship, pp. 213 - 230Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002