Description
Book SynopsisExplains the fluctuations in Israel's military policies during the 1990s-2000s from the Oslo Accords to the al-Aqsa Intifada and the Second Lebanon War. This book offers a conceptual framework that relies on materialist militarism.
Trade ReviewYagil Levy astutely brings together previously unconnected ideas about citizenship and rewards to military service. He thus produces a novel, persuasive account of how and why Israeli popular support for military actions against neighbors changes from one military engagement to the next. -- Charles Tilly, Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science, Columbia University
In this valuable book, Yagil Levy probes how the Israeli state has historically been constituted by military service and its concomitant social and material rewards, how the citizenship equation has been transformed over the decades, how the military's social base has changed as a result, and how these various trajectories have come together to shape the contemporary Israeli polity, its democracy, and especially its foreign policy and military strategy. The "material militarist" theoretical framework that Levy employs for organizing and understanding these developments is sure to provoke much debate, as will his particular interpretations of Israeli politics. Students of Israel in particular and of civil-military relations in general will find much rewarding in this rich study. -- Ronald R. Krebs, McKnight Land-Grant Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota
Table of ContentsChapter 1: Theoretical Introduction - The Essence and Dynamics of Materialist Militarism Chapter 2: The Republican Equation and Its Violation Chapter 3: The Continuation of Oslo by the al-Aqsa Intifada Chapter 4: The War of the Peripheries Chapter 5: From "People's Army" to "Market Army" Chapter 6: The "Embedded Military" and the Implementation of the Disengagement Plan Chapter 7: The Second Lebanon War: The "Gap of Legitimacies" Syndrome Chapter 8: Conclusions: Why Materialist Militarism Matters
