Suchergebnisse

"This title was first published in 2001. The modern state's claim to a monopoly of legitimate force bestows the concomitant duty of preventing the resort to violence by non-state actors. Consequently, failure to do so often leads to debates, concerning the legitimation of the perpetrators themselves and the legitimation of the authorities who were unable or unwilling to prevent their violent actions. Narratives of Violence constitutes the first work which relates these stigma contests to each other by analyzing the public discourse about right-wing violence in Israel. The result is an absorbing book which provides a fundamental re-evaluation of the causes and consequences of political violence and its societal boundaries. Its conclusions will have a resounding impact on the Israeli body politic and for democratic governments around the world."--Provided by publisher.

This article is based on a participant observation study of a basic training course in the Israeli Defence Forces. Attention was initially paid to a wider variety of problems facing the draftees during their initiation into the army. It soon became apparent, however, that their major difficulty involved "doing time " or making it pass as quickly as possible. This therefore became the focal concern of the study. Two aspects of the problem were analyzed—the cyclical perspective that the draftees were forced to adopt in place of the linear one usually adhered to in civilian life and the various ways (seeking information, passing time, and killing time) in which they tried to overcome the difficulties that this entailed. The results of the study are compared with those found in other analyses of army life and total institutions in general.