Doing activism like a state: Progressive municipal government, Israel/Palestine and BDS

Cooper, Davina; Herman, Didi

doi:10.1177/2399654419851187

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 59 publications

(62 reference statements)

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“…However, their limited ability to execute policy beyond their municipal boundaries means that working within such institutions can be viewed as watering down action in favor of taking moral stances and declaring solidarity. Still, even the latter has the value of claiming responsibility for the issue and stimulating greater political engagement (Cooper and Herman 2020).…”

Section: The 2014 Olive Declaration and Municipal Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Game of Whac-A-Mole

Lutz¹

2022

Israel Studies Review

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This article focuses on the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement's utilization of ‘fluidity,’ conceptualized as the ability to adapt campaign tactics to multiple arenas and political opportunity structures simultaneously. Framing BDS as both a social movement and a transnational advocacy network, it demonstrates the movement's fluidity in the context of three campaigns: the campaign at the 65th FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) congress in 2015, which illustrates an ‘outsider’ strategy aimed at intergovernmental institutions; the 2014 Olive Declaration of municipalities endorsing BDS, which illustrates how local ‘insider’ campaigns can combine to create a translocal campaign; and the ‘Ferguson-Gaza moment’ in 2014, which illustrates how movements can engage at the level of civil society and embed themselves in the broader global justice movement.

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Section: The 2014 Olive Declaration and Municipal Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Game of Whac-A-Mole

Lutz¹

2022

Israel Studies Review

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“…At another level, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has also become a visible presence in NI, with Catholic-Palestinian and Protestant-Israeli identifications and solidarities expressed prominently in flag-raising, murals, events, and municipal decisions (Cooper and Herman, 2019). Analyses of this practice have generally interpreted it as a reflection of the local NI conflict through its projection elsewhere.…”

Section: The Northern Ireland-israel Analogymentioning

confidence: 99%

“Lessons from Northern Ireland” in Israeli Public Discourse: The Politics of Analogies in Conflicted Societies

Dudai

2022

Political Studies

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The Northern Ireland 1998 Good Friday Agreement has generated a global industry of “lessons from Northern Ireland” to other conflict situations. While a lively polemical literature has been debating what exactly should these lessons be and whether they could be validly exported, this article adopts the prism of the “politics of comparison”: examining why and how certain actors appeal to analogies with other societies, and the causes and functions of such appeals. The article explores the case-study of the resonance of the Northern Ireland analogy in Israeli public discourse. It identifies and analyses four themes: the analogy with Northern Ireland is used as an argument for hope; as a source of peacemaking models; as self-justification, to deflect blame; and to legitimize narrow local interventions. The article contributes to literatures on the politics of comparisons, and political dynamics in the context of intractable conflicts.

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“…In Britain, its most recent comprehensive heyday was the 1980s, when urban councils across the country advanced an ambitious left agenda of economic democracy, social justice, environmentalism, decentralisation and democratisation against, and in defiance of, the Thatcher government’s political programme of privatisation, conservative familial relations, authoritarian policing, right-wing crime and union laws, and welfare retrenchment (see Boddy & Fudge, 1984; Gyford, 1985; Lansley et al, 1989; Seyd, 1987). A less comprehensive, more recent instance is the (episodic) support shown by councils to Palestine through statements of solidarity, Palestinian flag-waving, municipal visits to the West Bank, and resolutions in favour of the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign to put pressure on Israel (Cooper & Herman, 2019). The last decade witnessed several UK local authorities passing motions to withdraw contracts and investment.…”

Section: Four Prefigurative Actsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards an adventurous institutional politics: The prefigurative ‘as if’ and the reposing of what’s real

Cooper

2020

The Sociological Review

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Discussion of prefigurative politics typically focuses on the revisioning of means to ends within grass-roots activities taking shape against or apart from the state. This article takes a different approach. Addressing prefiguration through the terms of the ‘as if’, it explores the assertion of counterhegemonic meanings, facts, norms and authority both by and about institutions, including state ones. Through four contentious acts: municipal expressions of international solidarity; legislating new gender categories; role-playing micro-states and new money; and acting like a law reform commission, the article considers what prefiguration, and reading for prefiguration, can contribute to a progressive transformative politics. While rehearsing, anticipating and representing alternatives are important, well-recognised prefigurative attributes, this article also addresses less explored dimensions. Specifically, it considers how institutional prefiguration retroactively constitutes its conditions of legitimacy and authority, its depiction as fiction, the performative constraints it faces from diffuse and unequal circuits of power, and the work done by recognition (and non-recognition) of new facts, rules and norms. Together, these dimensions speak to the complicated and plural character of what is real when institutions are enacted as if they were otherwise. This quality of being both real and not real, in conditions of wider opposition, support and torpidity, constitutes the crux of prefiguration’s efforts and promise.

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Doing activism like a state: Progressive municipal government, Israel/Palestine and BDS

Cited by 7 publications

References 59 publications

A Game of Whac-A-Mole

A Game of Whac-A-Mole

“Lessons from Northern Ireland” in Israeli Public Discourse: The Politics of Analogies in Conflicted Societies

Towards an adventurous institutional politics: The prefigurative ‘as if’ and the reposing of what’s real

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