Through the Lens of Israel: Explorations in State and Society

Joel S. Migdal

feb 2012 · State University of New York Press

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Through the Lens of Israel illuminates Israeli history through the use of the author's unique state-in-society approach, and, at the same time, refines, develops, and expands that approach. The book provides a window for the formation of Israeli state and society during the twentieth century, while using the Israeli experience to ask how social scientists can better investigate and understand other societies as well. Three central themes of Israeli history are at the core of the analysis—state formation, society formation, and the mutually constitutive roles of state and society. By analyzing how Israel's state and society continually reconstruct one another, Migdal addresses larger questions with resonance far beyond Israel: How do particular societies and states end up with their distinctive character? How are the rules that shape everyday behavior determined? Who gains from these rules and who loses? And how and when do these rules and patterns of privilege change?

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Joel S. Migdal is Robert F. Philip Professor of International Studies at the University of Washington. His most recent work includes State Power and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World (coedited with Atul Kohli and Vivienne Shue).