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1. Military Doctrine and Political Participation: Toward a Sociology of Strategy

Author:
Yagil Levy
Publication Date:
01-1996
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Studies of Social Change
Abstract:
Wars produce contrasting effects on the state's status in the domestic arena: they bolster its internal control but, at the same time, create opportunities for collective action of which domestic groups can take advantage and weaken state autonomy. As the case of Israel suggests, within the confines of geo-political constraints, states modify their military doctrine to balance the two contradictory impacts. The main purpose of the paper is to lay the foundation for a Sociology of Strategy by drawing on the case of Israel.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Government, and Politics
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel

2. Peace Among States Is Also Peace Among Domestic Interests: Israel's Turn To De-escalation

Author:
Yagil Levy
Publication Date:
06-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Studies of Social Change
Abstract:
Demilitarization and de-escalation of violent conflicts have seemed to prevail during the last decade. The most significant event -- the collapse of the Soviet Union with the end of the Cold War--has stimulated scholars of international relations (IR) to retest the power of major theories to both explain and forecast the shift in the Soviet Union' 5 foreign policy from competition to cooperation with the U.S. (similar to shifts undergone by other states). Scholars generally agree that the economic crisis in the Soviet Union in a world system dominated by the U.S. played a key role in the former superpower's failure to extract the domestic resources needed to maintain its position of rivalry vis-à-vis the U.S., thus propelling it to embark on a new road. Still, scholars have debated with respect to the shift's timing and the origins of the trajectory opted for by the Soviet Union toward cooperation relative to other options, such as further competition as a means of ongoing internal-state extraction and control. This debate also highlights the analytical weaknesses of the realism/neorealism school of thought when taken against the background of the collapse of the bipolar, competitive world system on which this school has staked so much.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Defense Policy, Diplomacy, and Ethnic Conflict
Political Geography:
United States, Middle East, Israel, and Soviet Union

3. How Militarization Drives Political Control of the Military: The Case of Israel

Author:
Yagil Levy
Publication Date:
12-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Studies of Social Change
Abstract:
Observation of state-military relations in Israel reveals an apparent paradox: Within a period of about seventy years, the more the militarization of Israeli society and politics gradually increased, the more politicians were successful in institutionalizing effective control over the Israel Defence Forces (IDF, and the pre-state organizations). Militarization passed through three main stages: (1) accepting the use of force as a legitimate political instrument during the pre-state period (1920-1948), subsequent to confrontation between pacifism and activism; (2) giving this instrument priority over political-diplomatic means in the state's first years up to the point in which (3) military discursive patterns gradually dominated political discourse after the 1967 War. At the same time, political control over the IDF was tightened, going from the inculcation of the principle of the armed forces' subordination to the political level during the pre-state period to the construction of arrangements working to restrain the military leverage for autonomous action.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, and Government
Political Geography:
Middle East and Israel