Ethnocracy

Abstract: Introduction Part I. Theoretical Explorations: 1. Compromise and closure: a theory of social dynamics 2. The making of modern communities Part II. State Building and Ethnic Conflict: 3. Who owns the state? Ethnic conflicts after the end of empires 4. Nationalism and ethnic mobilisation in Mexico 5. From empire to ethnocracy. Iraq since the Ottomans Part III. The Politics of Exclusion in Nationalised States: 6. Racism and xenophobia 7. Nationalising multi-ethnic Switzerland.

Abstract: In this paper we offer a critical analysis of ethnic relations in an Israeli 'mixed city'. Similar to other sites shaped by the logics of settling ethnonationalism and capitalism, the 'mixed city' is characterized by stark patterns of segregation between a dominant majority and a subordinate minority, as well as by ethnoclass fragmentation within each group. 'Mixed' spaces are both excep- tional and involuntary, often resulting from the process of ethnicization prevalent in contested urban spaces. We theorize this setting as an 'urban ethnocracy', where a dominant group appropriates the city apparatus to buttress its domination and expansion. In such settings, conspicuous tensions accom- pany the interaction between the city's economic and ethnoterritorial logics, producing sites of conflict and instability, and essentializing group identities and ethnic geographies. Empirically, the paper focuses on the city of Lod or Lydda, Israel, where the production of contested urban space has been linked to the construction of an exclusionary Israeli-Jewish national identity and to the establish- ment of hierarchical ethnic citizenship. Like other previously Arab cities, Lod has been the target of a concerted strategy of Judaization, which has formed the city's central planning goal since the late 1940s. We analyze in detail various aspects and sites of the Judaization process, and of the ensuing urban conflicts. We point to the chronic instability of urban ethnocracies, and to the need of planning to rise above narrow ethnocentric considerations in order for the 'mixed city' to prosper as the home for all communities.

Abstract: During Israel's jubilee year two notable challenges to the order of things emerged from peripheral (nonmainstream) groups, both concerning the issue of land control. In early 1997 a group known as the Democratic Mizrahi Rainbow began a campaign under the slogan "This land is also mine," demanding a more equal share in the state's vast public lands. These are held mainly by Jewish rural settlements (kibbutzim and moshavim) that are dominated by Ashkenazi Jews.' The Democratic Mizrahi Rainbow claimed that since the lands were being developed for commercial use, they should be shared more equitably, with more benefits flowing to economically deprived Mizrahim. As the Democratic Mizrahi Rainbow's spokesperson stated, "If the kibbutzim no longer farm much of their so-called agricultural land and now lease it for megaprofits to megacompanies who build

Abstract: This article argues that Israel's settlement and socio-economic policies have caused internal ethnic and class divisions that now threaten the prospects of JewishPalestinian reconciliation. Furthermore, the association of peace primarily with the interests of Israel's economic and cultural elites has alienated most peripheral groups, particularly the Mizrahi and Haredi Jews. Therefore, the current efforts to arrive at territorial compromise with the Palestinians find Israel in a deep identity and socio-political crisis caused by the consequences of the state's 'ethnocratic' regime. The crisis is born of the surfacing of an overt contradiction, for thefirst time in Israel's history, between two major Zionist goals: territorial expansion and economic growth. This contradiction, and its associated ethnic and class tensions are likely to create obstacles to the ongoing eforts to advance Jewish-Palestinian reconciliation.