Suchergebnisse

This article examines the tense relations between religious and secular inIsrael and the prospects for what has been described by different observers as a "culture war." Specifically, the consequences and implication of the challenges to church‐state arrangements by social, economic, and demographic changes, and growing religious‐secular tensions are studied. The empirical investigation of these issues relies on a survey (n= 508) of a representative, random sample of the adultJewish population inIsrael. Research findings indicate that the culture war scenario exaggerates the actual state of affairs because secularism inIsrael is lacking coherence and commitment and alternatives that circumvent conflict are available. Rather than a culture war between the religious and secular camps inIsrael, different battles are taking place, waged in different realms with different constituencies, tactics, strategies, and levels of commitment whose combined outcome is yet to be determined.

This work explains the relative lack of involvement of Jordanian and Palestinian business communities in the Middle East peace processes. Based on interviews held with businesspeople, analysis of policy documents and secondary materials and textual sources, several explanations for this political inactivity are examined. First, the limited interest of the business community in the peace process underscores its limited commitment to peace. Second, the business community's inability to organize prevents effective collective action. Third, the business community is not significant enough to influence the political process. And, fourth, the estimated risks and costs of political involvement overshadow the potential benefits of peace. We find that while the business community has an interest in peace, it remains largely passive because fears of Israel's economic domination limit the perceived gains, and, more importantly, the perceived risks and costs of political involvement are high. Consequently, while some businesspeople cooperate with Israelis, this cooperation is generally kept quiet and does not translate into visible political support for the process.

This article analyzes how sociopolitical dynamics within a state can help explaining foreign policy. We show that under certain conditions, the public can be involved in ways that extend beyond expressing opinions that act as constraints on policy makers, & also takes active initiatives that eventually shape foreign policies. The article explains how sociopolitical processes in Israeli society, which transformed the nature of citizen-politician relations from a top-down to a bottom-up orientation, gradually led to shifts in foreign policy regarding the conflict with the Palestinians. The Israeli public has adopted an approach to solving social problems by unilateral initiatives, as part of its attempts to shape foreign policy from the bottom up, due to continuous government failure to provide public services, combined with blocked influence channels. As long as Israeli politicians ignored these changes, they failed to mobilize support for policies imposed from the top down & lost their positions of power. References. Adapted from the source document.