The Political Economy of Israel's Occupation

The Political Economy of Israel's Occupation
An interview with Shir Hever (transcript)

Shir Hever is an economic researcher in the Alternative Information Center, a Palestinian-Israeli organization active in Jerusalem and Beit-Sahour. Researching the economic aspect of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, some of his research topics include international aid to the Palestinians and Israel, the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories on the Israeli economy, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel. He is a frequent speaker on the topic of the economy of the Israeli occupation.

Coup-Proofing

Coup-Proofing: Its Practice and Consequeces in the Middle East

By: James T. Quinlivan

RAND Reprint Originally published in: International Security, v. 24, no. 2, Fall 1999, pp. 131-165.

"A number of Middle Eastern states — e.g., Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia — seem to be "coup-proof." That is, their regimes have created structures that minimize the possibility that a small group can seize power. These include effectively exploiting family, ethnic, and religious loyalties; creation of an armed force parallel to the regular military; development of multiple internal security agencies with overlapping jurisdiction that constantly monitor one another; fostering of expertness in the regular military; and adequately financing such measures. The regime is thus able to create an army that is effectively larger than one drawn solely from trustworthy segments of the population."

Jews as Native Iraqis

Joel Beinin, "Jews as Native Iraqis: An Introduction," in Nessim Rejwan, The Last Jews of Baghdad: Remembering a Lost Homeland (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004).

The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems

"Ferguson argues that although elections do not simply go to the highest bidder, only access to money from investors makes a real campaign possible. Since representatives need money to get elected, they can’t take positions unpopular with moneyed interests, though those positions would win in the “perfectly informed voters” world of the median-voter theorem. Voters cannot overcome the transaction costs of pooling their resources, so they must accept the choices offered."

Thomas Ferguson, Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).

Reviewed by Michael C. Munger, The Independent Review, 1:1 (1996).

Mandarins, Guns and Money: Academics and the Cold War

Mark Mazower

"For something happened in the cold war, something that ultimately benefited neither scholarship nor government. Huge sums of money were suddenly poured into the universities. Those with knowledge to offer were not necessarily those to whom policy-makers listened. The social scientists who got the grants offered technical advice that simplified the world and made it governable, using behavioral science or mathematical economics as their models. They turned human affairs into data sets, cultural patterns into forms of behavioral response, and they replaced the messy multiplicity of words and tongues with the universal and quantifiable language of science. This was not so much a military-industrial complex as a governmental-academic one. With the collapse of modernization theory, international relations offered itself as a new way of understanding the world. But world affairs continued to be seen as a problem to be managed, and the view adopted was almost always that from Washington. The rise of the think tanks made a bad problem worse, because as they adopted ever more partisan identities--and as American politics became more polarized--so academics reified the idea of value-neutral science and banished any explicit consideration of politics from their treatment of the world. Alternative approaches--dependency theory, underdevelopment, Marxism--found their niche in the American academy but rarely in mainstream politics departments.

Can social scientists these days do anything like the harm Walt Rostow inflicted? The short answer is yes. What of the Stanford political scientist turned policy-maker who has tried applying the lessons she mistakenly derived from the Soviet collapse to the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein? Condoleezza Rice is only the most obvious case, and the country's continuing love affair with technical expertise guarantees a receptive audience for applied social science. Last year the National Research Council recommended that the Pentagon double the research funding for the behavioral and social sciences; scholars are already helping to build computer-simulated models to predict insurgencies in Iraq and identify "the root causes of terrorism." Professor Pool's heirs march on"

Liberal remorse sets in...

My Private Obama

by Robert Kuttner

"But even a dire economic crisis and a Republican blockade of needed remedies have not fundamentally altered the temperament, trajectory, or tactical instincts of this surprisingly aloof president. He has not been willing or able to use his office to move public opinion in a direction that favors more activism. Nor has Obama, for the most part, seized partisan and ideological opportunities that hapless Republicans and clueless corporate executives keep lobbing him like so many high, hanging curve balls."

Why McChrystal Did It, Immanuel Wallerstein

"McChrystal gave the interview in order that he be fired. And why did he want to be fired? He wanted to be fired because he knew that the policies he was pursuing and championing in the war in Afghanistan were not working, could not work. And he didn’t want to be the one tarnished with the public blame."