Combining political theory and sociological interviews spanning four countries, Ilan Zvi Baron explores the Jewish Diaspora/Israel relationship and suggests that instead of looking at Diaspora Jews’ ...relationship with Israel as a matter of loyalty, it is one of obligation. Baron develops an outline for a theory of transnational political obligation and, in the process, provides an alternative way to understand and explore the Diaspora/Israel relationship than one mired in partisan debates about whether or not being a good Jew means supporting Israel. He concludes by arguing that critique of Israel is not just about Israeli policy, but about what it means to be a Diaspora Jew.
"The rise of populism, Donald Trump's election and the result of the EU referendum in the UK have been widely interpreted as a rejection of the post-war liberal order - the manifestation of a desire ...to undermine the political system that people feel has let them down. Yet mainstream politicians and analysts have been slow to grasp the changing situation, instead relying on a rhetoric of 'hard data' and narrow economic arguments while failing to properly engage with the politics of identity. This book argues that the relationship between methodology and politics is now more important than ever - that politics, if it is anything, is about engaging with people's interpretations and narratives of the world in which they find themselves. Politics in this new 'post-truth' era will require an appreciation of the fact we live in an uncertain world of endless diversity and potential for change. This thoughtful book addresses how we might think about and do politics in these strange new times."--
Regulatory agencies care about their reputation, which helps sustain their authority. As innovation can introduce uncertainty in governance, delaying action or overlooking danger can negatively ...affect agencies' standing. Aware of these reputation risks, agencies rely on a set of methods to govern the unknown. These methods, we argue, are: (1) categorization, if the innovation is considered identical to known regulatory categories; (2) analogy, if the innovation is considered similar to known categories, and; (3) new categorization, when new classifications are deemed necessary to address the innovation. Each method shapes governance by triggering the application of existing regulations (categorization and analogy), calls for either technical and regulatory fixes (analogy), or calls for broader regulatory undertakings (new categorization). Agencies' choice of methods, we argue, is shaped by concerns over performative reputation (i.e., showing the ability to fulfill core tasks), which in turn is affected by agencies' ability to demonstrate technical rigor (i.e., technical reputation).
This article explores how fake news, variously described as misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, and post-truth threatens our pluralistic democratic life. We ask, how does fake news ...function in constructing a world of meaning that destabilises the conditions under which we are able to render valid political judgements in democratic life? Using the 1992 R v Zundel Supreme Court Case from Canada to explore the free speech question, and Hannah Arendt’s distinction between fact and opinion, we argue that fake news uses the malleability of language to displace fact with opinion. This displacement threatens democracy in two ways. First, fake news functions by deploying language in such a way that it is built on refuting its own ability to produce factual knowledge, and in the process the world becomes one of opinion treated axiomatically. Second, as a consequence, it renders judgement impossible because the only information that counts is opinion, whereas judgement corresponds to the public character of factual knowledge. This displacement produces a pseudo-reality where we can imagine that only people like us live here, that is, people who share our own opinions. This is a world that Hannah Arendt and Hans Jonas might characterise as thoughtless.
One of the state's key features is its ability to oblige its citizens to risk their lives on its behalf by being sent into war. However, what is it about the state (or its equivalent) that makes this ...obligation justifiable? Justifying the Obligation to Die is the first monograph to explore systematically how this obligation has been justified. Using key texts from political philosophy and just war theory, it provides a critical survey of how this obligation has been justified and, using illustrations from Zionist thought and practice, demonstrates how the various arguments for the obligation have functioned. The obligation to risk one's life for the state is often presumed by theorists and practitioners who take the state for granted, but for the Zionists, a people without a state but in search of one and who have little history of state-based political thought, it became necessary to explain this obligation. As such, this book examines Zionism as a Jewish political theory, reading it alongside the tradition of Western political thought, and critiques how Zionist thought and practice sought to justify this obligation to risk one's life in war—what Michael Walzer termed "the obligation to die." Finally, turning to the political thought of Hannah Arendt, the author suggests how the obligation could become justifiable, although never entirely justified. For the obligation to become at all justifiable, the type of politics that the state enables must respect human diversity and individuality and restrict violence so that violence is not a continuation of politics.
I am honoured to have been invited to participate in this Critical Dialogue and I am appreciative of Professor Monterescu’s insightful comments. In one of his remarks, he calls for further research ...into the“sociological mechanisms that connect Jews to Israel while simultaneously disconnecting Palestinians from Israel and Palestine.” This framing suggests that Israel/Palestine operates in zero-sum terms, so that one side’s connection functions to the extent that it displaces the other. While much political discourse operates in this way, I suggest that this is a mistake. Such binaries and their consequences emphasize the need for rethinking politics. It was partly this need that led me to critique and develop an understanding of obligation. The idea of obligation has its limitations, but it is, I suggest, significantly better than the alternative of loyalty (which also suggests zero-sums).
The paper explores the political narratives produced in English-language Israeli cookbooks. We examine an understudied, yet central component of everyday international relations, everyday ...nationalism, and identity contestations as practiced through gastronomy, and highlight the dilemma between the different political uses of popular culture in the context of conflict resolution and resistance. Our argument identifies different narratives represented in what we term Culinary Zionism. One narrative is explicitly political, discusses Israeli cuisine as a foodway, and contributes to creating a space of, and a path for, coexistence and recognition of the Other. A second narrative is found in tourist-orientated cookbooks that offer a supposedly apolitical story of culinary tours in Israel. We problematize the political and normative implications of these narratives by exploring the potential role of these books to open space for dialogue and to increase the familiarity and interest of foreign audiences of Israel and the conflict. We contrast this possibility with their potential to what we term foodwashing, namely the process of using food to symbolically wash over violence and injustices (the violence of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in this case).
This article is concerned with addressing the following hypothesis, originally presented in Millennium in 2001: International Relations theory does not influence other academic fields to the extent ...that it suggests that it should. This claim is re-examined in light of the growth of IR over the past decade. Using a variety of evidence, including a close examination of the Social Sciences Citation Index, I conclude that IR (still) does not have much influence outside of the IR academic community. I also argue that while it is not reasonable to expect scholars who write on global politics but belong in other academic fields or disciplines to turn to IR, the way that IR defines itself suggests that they should. Consequently, it follows that IR needs to be doing more in order to make our work of greater relevance to, at minimum, those fields of scholarship that IR borrows from. I suggest that the reason why IR has continued to have little influence in other fields is because of the way IR sets itself up as a subject concerned with an anarchical order made up of sovereign states.
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