Housing in the face of crisis: The influence of Israel's 2011 protest on housing policy

Do social protests affect government housing-related decisions? If so, in what way? To answer this question this study examines the influence of Israel's 2011 social protest on the government's housing policy, using an empirical cumulative-aggregative analysis of housing-related decisions over the past two decades. The empirical analysis is based on two generic classifications of government interventions commonly used in housing literature: first, decisions aimed at increasing the housing stock (supply-side), as opposed to policies aimed at augmenting consumers' financial capacity to obtain adequate housing (demand-side); and second, decisions that encourage homeownership as opposed to those that promote rental housing. The research findings show that the 2011 social protest definitely affected Israel's housing policy, because it prompted the government to engage in housing. However, the interventions introduced focused largely on increasing the inventory of housing units (supply-side) for homeownership and benefited mainly members of the middle class who qualify for mortgages and investors. Thus, despite the increase in government involvement in the post-protest period, Israel's housing policy has remained neoliberal, though in an advanced form of neoliberalism that combines market-oriented policies with centralized tendencies, which we call “centralized neoliberalism.” The study discusses the findings and their implications for various population groups. Given the current global affordable-housing crisis, the findings are relevant to many countries whose existing neoliberal housing policy is failing to address housing-market problems and challenges.     

The metropolitanization of Israel's settlement policy: The colonization of the West Bank as a strategy of spatial restructuring

Israel's West Bank settlements are a central point of contention in the dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Overall, however, their rapid proliferation has been generally understood through the lens of an ideologically centered approach that highlights, specifically, the centrality of the national religious settlers' movement. Against this background, the article focuses on the overlooked reality of large, state-sponsored suburban settlements – and in particular on the role of the Israeli Ministry of Housing in their establishment between the mid-1970s and the early 1990s. Building on contributions in the field of political economy and political geography, we conceive the actions of the Ministry in the occupied West Bank as a result of a broader strategy of spatial restructuring. By considering both economic and political imperatives underlying this strategy, our analysis offers a more comprehensive assessment of the factors behind Israel's settlement policy. Drawing on a broad range of empirical sources, from archival material to in-depth interviews with Israeli planners, we argue that the proliferation of settlements has been largely the outcome of a process of metropolitanization – i.e. of the dynamics of urban development of Israel's main metropolitan centers and the adoption of a new, post-Keynesian policy paradigm based on market-oriented economic development. This process has constituted a major factor for the settlements' growth and, ultimately, in the emergence and naturalization of a new territorial configuration in the area of Israel/Palestine.     

Secularization of immigration policy vs. religion's influence on integration: Israel's non‐Jewish Jews' immigration in a comparative perspective

This article deals with the complex relationship between religion and immigration in Western countries, with an emphasis on Israel. The main argument it presents is that the legal procedures of immigration, i.e. laws relating to the acquisition of civil status, have undergone dramatic secularization, while religion's influence is expressed in the social and cultural aspects of the integration of immigrants belonging to religious minorities. This division reinforces the classical theory of secularization, as the formal boundaries of nations are not subject to religious affiliations, but it also supports the theories of competition and complementation between religion and secularism in the social sphere. The tension in the Israeli case between the immigration, naturalization and integration of non‐Jewish Jews, who are part of the extended Jewish population that is not defined by religious parameters, confirms this thesis. The immigration of hundreds of thousands of non‐Jewish Jews' under the Law of Return based on ethno‐national‐secular parameters is an ultimate expression of the secularization of Jewish nationality. On the other hand, the state's encouragement of non‐Jewish immigrants to convert to Judaism so that they can better assimilate into Jewish society signifies the importance of religion in the social integration aspect.     

Measuring structural social capital in a cluster policy network: insights from the Basque Country

Cluster Associations (CAs) attempt to promote competitiveness through inter-firm collaboration, and are generally seen as drivers of social capital formation in the region. We map in this paper, by using Social Network Analysis, the cluster policy network of the Basque Country in 2013, which may be considered a proxy of the structural dimension of social capital in the region. Besides, we identify the central agents of this network and attempt to explain the reasons for their centrality and the roles that they play. We take the affiliation of an organization to at least two CAs as a first indicator of the overall pattern of connections within the cluster policy network. Later on, we filter it with data about the Boards of Directors of CAs, and the Basque Contact Points created to concur with the Seventh Framework Programme for Research launched by the European Commission. We contend that those organizations that are present in these three networks form a ‘small world’ that numerous studies have shown to be favourable for creative output, where they might play a dual role of gatekeepers of knowledge and innovation within and between clusters and drivers of bridging social capital formation in the Basque Country.     

Agricultural reclamation policy and environmental changes in the northwest China during the Qing dynasty

Northwest China, including the provinces of Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, and a small part of the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region, was not only one of the earliest developed areas in history, but also one of the most ecologically fragile belts. The traditionally sustainable land reclamation and cultivation policies for the development of an agricultural economy adopted and implemented in administrations during different periods of the Qing dynasty, greatly raised farming and stock production. However, this led to imbalances in the originally fragile ecological environment. The negative effects such as rapidly expanding desertification, worsening water and soil erosions, increased cost of production, enlarged investment, vicious cycles and failing economy can serve as a lesson for contemporary development. __________ Translated from: Qingshi Yanjiu 清史研究 (Studies in Qing History), No. 1, 2004     

Company Growth,Acquisitions and Access to Complementary Assets in Israel's Data Security Sector

This article analyses aspects of high-tech cluster emergence in Israel during the 1990s with focuses on the data security software industry and on strategies of very successful companies dominating such an industry. Most of the industry is concentrated in Tel Aviv and close-by Hertzliya and to a lesser extent Haifa and Jerusalem. It starts by characterizing the industry as a whole and the universe of 19 companies comprising it. It then proceeds with an in-depth analysis of the growth trajectories of very successful companies, some of which are listed in NASDAQ or have been acquired by large multinational corporations. A fast 'IPO' and a 'fast M&A' track have been identified and characterized. The analysis suggests that while globalization could be beneficial to skill intensive peripheral economies like Israel, a significant economic impact may require an appropriate balance between start-up activity and downstream production and marketing activities.     

Motherhood and nation: The voice of women artists in Israel's bereavement and memorial discourse

This article offers an interpretive reading of current works of art by women that indicate the paradoxical place of the woman artist as a mother in the cycle of militarism and attitudes toward the discourse of bereavement and commemoration. My hypothesis is that the arts herald or anticipate the trauma by seeking to express something that may be called “pre- and counter-commemoration.” This interpretation of these artists' stance expands on insights arising from the notion of “counter-memory” to discuss a paradoxical form of commemoration that refuses to acquiesce in the cycle of militarism and memorialization. The article offers an integrated examination of theory and practices in the historical context of motherhood and nationalism and, specifically, of women artists in Israel in recent decades in the “discourse of bereavement” as opposed to the “discourse of the bereaved.”     

Conflicting viewpoints on opium prohibition: Radical changes to opium policy in the late Qing dynasty

The ban on opium at the end of the Qing dynasty was larger and more influential than ever before. Opinions differed on opium prohibition between the court and society. The intelligentsia and government believed in a set of policies, while opium farmers and traders resisted them. Subsequent conflicts became more and more intense, especially when opium farmers began protesting the ban on planting opium. The reactions of officials and commoners towards this backlash against the opium ban were very complex. The rehabilitation plans and measures following the backlash proved ineffective, leaving a confused situation out of control. __________ Translated from Wen-shi-zhe (Journal of Literature, History & Philosophy), 2004:2     

The apprenticeship in policy

Cyril S. Belshaw. The Sorcerer's Apprentice: An Anthropology of Public Policy. New York and Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1976. xvi +342 pp. Index. $16.00 cloth, $10.00 paper.