Summary
In Lev Grinberg’s account, the general postcolonial problem that the political actors who organize the independence struggle design and dominate the new state’s institutions in order to maintain and expand their own power, limiting the autonomy of state institutions and civil society and blurring institutional boundaries (Moments of Resistance, PDF p.100-101).
Details
- The catch results from the inability to open a Political Space for democratic representation and mediation, due to the absence of the necessary balance of power between state and society (PDF p.100-101).
- In the Israeli case it was exacerbated by the extensive power of the pre-state institutions (the Jewish Agency and Histadrut) and by the armed conflict, used to legitimize military control of Arab citizens and retaliation operations beyond the borders; pre-1948 institutions were split among British, Jewish Agency and Histadrut hands and continued after 1948, and that continuity — read by functionalists as stability — is here the main source of tensions and the main barrier to democratic opening (PDF p.101-102).
- Its flip side is quasi-citizenship: after 1948 it was not enough to be a citizen for free movement, labor-market access and public services — Jews were required to be Histadrut members, while Arabs had to collaborate with the military ruler (Lustick 1980; Shalev 1992; Cohen 2006) (PDF p.102-103).
Related pages
Moments of Resistance, Political Space, Labor Institutional Complex, Vicious Institutional Triangle, Lev Grinberg