Ben Borenstein, Netta Kahana, Rami Kaplan and Nir Rotem
The literature on global academic center-periphery relations points to a hierarchical power structure dominated by academic centers in the Global North. These centers set the leading intellectual agendas and standards of academic excellence. They also drive the spread of academic capitalism. Semi-peripheral academies, like that in Israel, experience pressure to conform to these hegemonic criteria, often discouraging local orientations, such as researching local issues and publishing in local languages. But how do these values and priorities shape recruitment and promotion processes within local contexts, considering that gatekeeping positions are staffed by local academics? Based on a survey of professional sociologists and anthropologists in Israel, we explore the mechanisms that shape the intellectual choices of these academics. We find that the field’s incumbents (and gatekeepers) show a higher tendency to adopt globally oriented intellectual values and practices, notwithstanding that dissatisfaction with the globalization trend is quite widespread throughout the local academic field. We also find that a background in international education, which has become a condition for promotion in the local academic field, plays an important role in shaping the observed stratified distribution of intellectual choices.
Our theoretical approach draws on the sociology of knowledge, particularly the concept of intellectual choice, often influenced by strategic considerations for status and career opportunities. From a Bourdieusian perspective, academic fields involve constant competition over prestige and resources, with strategic choices guiding individuals’ intellectual decisions. The study hypothesizes that senior academics will be inclined to adopt global orientations thanks to two mechanisms—sorting and socializing—forming an orthodoxy. As gatekeepers, this orientation will enable the reproduction of global hegemony at the local level.
Our work also feeds from the ongoing normative discussion within the Israeli sociological and anthropological community concerning the tension between these disciplines’ local and global orientations. This discussion was revitalized given recent findings highlighting that leading American sociology journals tend to publish work by American scholars on American society. This observation emphasized the semi-peripheral position of Israeli academia relative to global knowledge centers and raised concerns about the reliance on international—often American—standards for academic advancement in Israel. Many community members perceive this situation as fostering subordination, and questions about the identity and role of sociology and anthropology in the country come forth. Specifically, whether these disciplines can exist as local entities separate from global centers and whether they have obligations to their local society alongside their global integration. Thus, against this normative communal debate, we aim to explore the distribution of attitudes, research practices, and professional identities of Israeli sociologists and anthropologists around the tension between local and global orientations in their disciplines.
An online survey was conducted in late 2020 among 264 Israeli self-defined sociologists and anthropologists at the doctoral level and above. Questions were designed to emphasize the contrast between global and local orientations, compelling respondents to position themselves along this axis. Likert-scale questions assessed attitudes toward the discipline’s identity, research practices, and professional identities. The analysis uses descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, Pearson correlation coefficient, and logistic regression.
The study demonstrates a significant tension among members of the Israeli community between local and global orientations, reflecting a stratified structure influenced by academic status and international education. Senior, internationally educated academics align more with global hegemonic values, which are reinforced by gatekeeping processes in hiring and promotion. These academics tend to prefer candidates with similar orientations, reproducing the global-local dynamic within the local field.
In terms of individual research practices and professional identities, a correlation was found between global orientation and intra-academic professionalism, and between local orientation and public engagement, indicating a division within the community between those aligning with global academic standards and those prioritizing local relevance. Here again, professors and those with international education were more likely to adopt a global professional identity and were motivated by academic and career considerations in selecting research topics. They were less driven by personal or social motivations, such as a connection to local phenomena or a desire for social change.
International education serves a dual role: it acts as a sorting mechanism favoring those already inclined toward global orientation and shapes individuals’ academic perspectives, aligning them with global values. Despite the dominance of global orientation, significant space remains for locally oriented practices, and many community members expressed discomfort with the extent of global influence.
Regarding generational gaps, younger researchers (under 45), though adopting globally oriented practices due to career pressures, also expressed concern about international dominance. This ambivalence highlights effective reproduction mechanisms that align intellectual choices with global dictates, even when individuals have reservations. It suggests that while the younger generation conforms to global norms to secure academic positions, they are troubled by the implications of this compliance for local engagement.
In sum, the community appears to be divided into two groups: one globally oriented and focused on intra-academic professionalism, and another locally oriented, supporting professionalism that includes public engagement. These findings have implications for the professional community. There is a need for reflective discussion about balancing global integration with commitment to local society and culture. Neglecting this commitment could erode the field’s social legitimacy and eventually reduce the interpretative imagination through which we understand the social world.
Keyword: Israeli Sociology; Higher Education; Globalization; Center-Periphery Relations; Academic Capitalism
Tailor-Made Nationalism: The Case of the Israeli Digital Nomads
Digital nomads are individuals who lead a highly mobile lifestyle, relying on digital work as their primary source of income. Their lives are characterised by self-reliance, location-independence, leisure, tourism, and minimalism. The Israeli digital nomads’ community represents an extreme example of a cosmopolitan neoliberal lifestyle that aims to transcend traditional identity boundaries, including the nation-state. However, despite their desire to break free from traditional identities, Israeli digital nomads seek a sense of belonging to the Israeli collective, which they achieve through active participation in the Israeli digital nomad community.
This article shows that despite the belief that globalisation and technology blur nationalism, technology does not necessarily blur national identities but reshapes them. Among Israeli digital nomads, there is a discourse that is both cosmopolitan and critical of nationalism, while Israeli nationalism remains prominent. The article examines whether nationalism is suspended among Israeli nomads and, if not, when and under what circumstances these sentiments arise and how they manifest themselves. These questions are part of a broader inquiry into how technology shapes nationalism in the digital age, specifically how technology redefines Israeli nationalism and enables non-territorial national affiliation.
The lifestyle of digital nomadism involves extreme mobility and detachment from traditional territorial constraints. It is a prime example of a cosmopolitan neoliberal lifestyle that incorporates digital work into a nomadic way of living. This lifestyle mirrors broader trends in modern social relations, characterised by high mobility, individualism, and ongoing instability, with technology playing a significant role in reshaping how people create social connections within more dynamic, personalised networks. Within this context, the role of nationalism is contested. Some argue that globalisation and cosmopolitanism have weakened national identities, while others believe technology strengthens national identity and reinforces national collectives. The case of digital nomads thus offers a unique opportunity to examine how national identity is shaped in an era of hyper-mobility and digital connectivity.
The research findings are based primarily on 21 in-depth interviews with Israeli digital nomads. In addition to the interviews, I conducted digital observations in the community’s Facebook group and website. All interviews took place between 2020 and 2021 and were recorded, transcribed, and anonymised. The interviews lasted between 45 minutes to an hour and a half and covered various aspects of the nomads’ social lives, including forming new connections, relationships, community activities, participation in the Facebook group, social events, attitudes towards Israel, and thoughts about the future.
The findings suggest that the tension between a neoliberal, cosmopolitan lifestyle on the one hand and national belonging on the other is resolved by what I describe as ‘tailor-made nationalism’. Tailor-made nationalism is a subjective process in which nomads shape their nationalism according to their needs. This new form of nationalism is based on technology, adapted to personal needs, and not tied to territorial and civil commitment to the nation-state. It is built on a nomadic ideology, technology-based social practices, and establishing a community with both global and local characteristics.
Tailor-made nationalism, as expressed by Israeli digital nomads, is a personal and flexible concept that manifests in various ways. This form of nationalism allows individuals to choose their level of engagement with the nation-state, from maintaining official residency and bank accounts in Israel to completely detaching from its ties. The degree of property ownership in Israel and time spent there annually also vary among nomads. This flexibility enables nomads to maintain their national identity through virtual communities and temporary physical encounters, incorporating micro-national rituals and expressing solidarity through knowledge sharing, conferences, and mutual professional support. At its core, tailor-made nationalism leverages global and technological features to allow detachment from territorial and civic commitments, enabling individuals to reconstruct their relationship with the nation-state. It allows nomads to choose which subgroups within the larger national group they identify with, effectively building a form of nationalism from the ground up while rejecting traditional national institutions.
In a broader context, this case emphasises that under late modernity, nationalism does not disappear but rather takes on new, flexible and personalised forms. Citizens seeking territorial and civil freedom from the constraints of nationality maintain their identity through ‘banal nationalism’ that redefines the relationship between them and the nation-state. The Israeli nomadic community serves as evidence of the need for collective belonging despite choosing a highly individualistic lifestyle. Even as they strive to live a non-territorial life, their connection to a national collective is deeply ingrained in their worldview. Under a hypermobile lifestyle where all aspects of life are fragmentary and transient, belonging to a national collective constitutes stable ground.
Keywords: digital nomads, nationalism, digital sociology, national identity
Political Sociology of Demographic Discourse in Israel: Citizenship Laws as Case Studies Ben Herzog
This article explores how demographic factors have shaped Israeli citizenship laws through an analysis of the debates leading up to two key laws linking ‘demographic engineering’ and ‘population politics.’ The 1970 amendment to the Law of Return allowed over 350,000 non-Jews (according to the Jewish Orthodox law [halakha]) to immigrate and become naturalized in Israel after the Soviet Union’s collapse. Conversely, the 2003 Citizenship and Entry Law restricted family reunification between Israeli citizens and spouses from the Occupied Palestinian Territories. These cases are extreme examples of demographic discourse in Israel: the first significantly affected Israel’s demographic makeup, while the second was framed as having major demographic implications.
Citizenship laws pose a research dilemma. Why does the amendment to the Law of Return, which directly affected the demographic reality, not explicitly address this aspect, while the 2003 Citizenship and Entry Law, whose actual impact remains unclear, is presented as a significant demographic regulation? In other words, why is the language of the law different from the central issue it influences? How has the demographic discourse changed over the years? And what can we learn from this difference in attitude to changes in Israeli society?
The current study combines three academic fields – ‘Citizenship Studies,’ ‘Demography,’ and ‘Israel Studies.’
Citizenship status, which serves as a legal expression of the national order, is a symbolic tool of utmost importance in defining a country’s social and cultural boundaries. Accordingly, there is a direct link between this status and immigration laws (Joppke, 1999). This is because regulations governing entry into the national community and the inclusion of new members depend on an understanding of who, from the outset, is deemed worthy of belonging to ‘us’ and who is not. The discourse on citizenship and immigration, which I analyze in this article, represents one of the three key factors influencing demographic patterns (alongside birth and death rates).
There is no doubt that citizenship laws impact actual demographic realities (Amit, Borowski, and DellaPergola, 2010). In Israel as well, the decision about who is eligible to immigrate to the country and obtain citizenship has been—and continues to be—a central factor shaping the population (Ben-Shemesh, 2008; Rouhana and Sultany, 2003). However, this article focuses on the discursive level regarding these laws, rather than on their actual demographic outcomes.
The current demographic discourse in Israel focuses mainly on the differentiation between Jews and Arabs within the country, the anticipated changes in the demographic balance of these populations, and the implications of these changes for Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state. My research examines whether the current demographic discourse also existed in the past.
The analysis in this article is based on protocols of the discussions regarding the second amendment to the Law of Return in 1970 and the Citizenship and Entry Law (Temporary Order), conducted both in the Knesset plenary and in the relevant Knesset committees.
My argument regarding the gap between the language of the law and the discourse surrounding it is grounded in analyzing the ‘interpretive packages’ commonly present in parliamentary debates. This analytical method is based on Gamson’s (1982; Gamson and Lasch, 1983) approach. It involves classifying texts according to different frameworks of thought, enabling empirical examination of the political discourse on a specific issue. ‘Interpretive packages’ are units of analysis created from the combination of multiple dimensions that represent how individuals relate to, interpret, and articulate their views within the discourse.
Five cultural frames were identified among Knesset members from various parties. These cultural frameworks do not pertain to their positions for or against the law but relate to the core reasons underlying their stance. The interpretive packages detected included discussions on: (1) the Jewish world as a whole; (2) religious issues; (3) the integration of immigrants in Israel; (4) party conflicts surrounding religion and state; and (5) the Israeli judicial system. Questions related to the demographic debate about a Jewish majority in Israel were notably absent from these discourse patterns.
During the debates over the legislation and re-legislation of the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, the demographic issue was explicitly addressed (despite the law still being presented as a security measure). The debate was characterized by an almost dichotomous division between members of the Arab and Jewish parties regarding both the framing of the law and their positions on it. Although various arguments were raised, the discussion can be summarized into two main interpretive packages: on the one hand, the law was presented as a security necessity in response to the wave of terror in Israeli cities; on the other hand, it was viewed as an anti-democratic attempt to harm Israeli Arabs, restrict their personal freedoms, and reduce the number of Palestinians able to obtain Israeli citizenship.
Despite both laws impacting immigration patterns and Israel’s demographic composition, they reflect distinctly different demographic concerns. The 1970 debates centered on intra-Jewish demographics, particularly addressing concerns about assimilation of members of the Jewish diaspora. In contrast, the 2003 discussions explicitly focused on maintaining the Jewish-Arab demographic balance within Israel.
I show that while demographic considerations often intersect with citizenship legislation, the nature of demographic discourse is deeply rooted in its historical context. During the debate on the second amendment to the Law of Return, discussions involved both Israeli and global Jewish perspectives, considering impacts on Israeli society and the wider Jewish community. In contrast, debates about the Citizenship and Entry Law focused only on Israeli society. This shift suggests a strengthening of Israel’s internal Jewish identity, moving the emphasis from external relations with the global Jewish community to internal issues of citizenship and national identity. Moreover, I Top of FormIIIIIIIIargue that Israeli identity is shifting away from concepts of homogeneous national monoculturalism and is increasingly defined by fear and aversion toward the Palestinian ‘other.’
Keywords: Demography, Law of Return, Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, Immigration
Dori Ben Alon and Ruthi Ginsburg
This article contends that in the context of prolonged, recurring demonstrations, photography serves not only as a tool for documentation but also as a fundamental infrastructure for collective action. Focusing on the protest wave against the judicial overhaul in Israel in 2023 (pre-October 7), we illustrate how the array of photographic elements—comprising devices, platforms, human participants, and circulation channels—actively influences the protest’s spatial organization, temporal dynamics, and modes of participation. Rather than viewing images merely as by-products of conflict, we conceptualize photography as a socio-technical infrastructure that shapes the nature of protest and determines how it unfolds.
We draw on insights from infrastructure studies and Science and Technology Studies (STS) to explore how both material and informational systems underpin social life, distribute capabilities, and shape perceptions of power dynamics. Building upon the existing scholarship in visual politics and mediatized protest, which emphasizes the translocal journey of images and their impact on public attention, we shift focus from the resulting images to the infrastructural conditions— such as devices, platforms, and practices—that facilitate and configure the staging of protest. This includes an examination of both the promised efficiencies and systemic frictions involved.
This study integrates participatory observation of recurring protest events with 40 semi-structured interviews conducted with protester-photographers, who employed a range of devices including smartphones, DSLR and mirrorless cameras, drones, and live streaming equipment. We examine the ecosystem that connects the processes of capturing, editing, and disseminating images across social media platforms and news outlets. This mixed-method qualitative approach allows us to reconstruct the media ecology surrounding the protests and identify the mechanisms by which imaging practices organize the presence of bodies in both space and time.
Conceptualizing photography as infrastructure highlights how protests are co-authored by their media ecologies. The photographic landscape exemplifies the dynamics of platform capitalism—characterized by entrepreneurial, unpaid, metric-driven labor; rapid data flows; and reliance on proprietary channels— while also facilitating broad participation and tactical visibility. However, the very success of scaling up production and distribution leads to image inflation; as the volume of images increases, the potency of any individual image diminishes. Consequently, an infrastructure designed to amplify impact can inadvertently dilute meaning, revealing a contradiction between optimized circulation and political clarity. This duality reframes familiar discussions around representation by situating political effects within the design of assemblages—encompassing devices, protocols, perspectives, and distribution pipelines—rather than focusing solely on semiotic content. This study underscores the conceptual validity of the infrastructure metaphor within the context of the photographic array depicting protest. This analysis is articulated through three principal axes:
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Typology of Cameras: The simultaneous presence of smartphones, professional cameras, action cameras, and drones creates a rich tapestry of affordances—ranging from intimate close-ups to expansive aerial views, along with continuous streaming—all of which possess unique epistemologies and claims to authority. This ecosystem of devices encourages ongoing capture and self-representation, such as selfies and live feeds. As a result, the omnipresence of cameras becomes a foundational aspect of events, intertwining participants’ experiences while simultaneously shaping their engagement through these devices.
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Topography and Choreography of Protest: Imaging requirements coproduce the geography of gathering, where selections of intersections, elevations, vantage points, and movement paths are carefully calibrated for optimal visibility and shareable spectacle (such as iconic aerial shots of Kaplan Junction). The dynamics of flow—advancing, pausing, clustering—often align with the imperatives of shooting and broadcasting, effectively transforming urban layouts into media stages.
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Technologies and Circulation: The infrastructure links facilitate instant dissemination across institutional, independent, and social networks. This not only accelerates coordination and amplifies claims but also encourages cross platform remixing. However, it also aligns protest efforts with the platformdriven logics of attention and metrics, transforming voluntary imaging labor into a market-like exchange of visibility, access, and recognition.
The article presents a generalizable framework—photography-as-infrastructure— that examines the role of visual technologies in shaping protests, rather than merely representing or participating in them. This framework elucidates how prolonged mobilizations foster specialized device ecologies and spatial routines, and it explains why optimization can lead to diminishing returns in situations of attention scarcity. By delineating typologies, spatial choreographies, and circulation regimes, our analysis offers versatile tools for studying mediatized contention and for understanding how media infrastructures influence democratic action in the platform era.
In addition to its academic significance, this study reveals how media infrastructures influence opportunities for democratic participation, collective visibility, and civic engagement. It offers valuable insights for activists, policymakers, and cultural practitioners who aim to enhance the resilience and effectiveness of social movements within a variety of political and cultural contexts.
Keywords: protest infrastructures; networked social movements; protest photography; infrastructure studies (STS); media infrastructures
The Geopolitical Hypothesis and Security Neoliberalism in Israel
This article examines the relationship between Israel’s foreign policy orientation and its domestic economic regime between the Second Intifada (2001) and the formation of Netanyahu’s sixth government in late 2022. This period was marked by the nearhegemony of the right-wing political camp, whose foreign policy was consistently hawkish and whose neoliberal economic policy deepened inequality and poverty.
The complementarity between hawkish foreign policy and neoliberal economic policy in the post-Intifada period is puzzling on two grounds. First, theories of economic nationalism predict complementarity between high security threats and state interventionism. Second, in the case of Israel, until the second Intifada, history demonstrated a correlation between intensive real and/or imagined external threats and state intervention. This research seeks to explain the anomaly of the linkage between a hawkish political approach and neoliberalism in the post-Intifada era.
The central research question, therefore, is whether there is a causal link between the hawkish stance of the ruling elite and the adoption of an economic growth regime with regressive social consequences, and if so, what mechanisms explain this link.
The article advances the Geopolitical Hypothesis, which posits that hawkish elites place a higher value on de facto external sovereignty—defined as the state’s ability to make and implement policy without external interference—than dovish elites. This valuation shapes their choice of growth strategy.
A domestic demand–led strategy provides more welfare but undermines de facto sovereignty due to reliance on external financing. A foreign demand–led strategy prioritizes exports and foreign investment, offering lower welfare and development but strengthening the external economic position. In Israel’s case, the hawkish elite accepted the social costs of inequality to maintain sovereignty, limiting U.S. influence on policy toward the occupied territories and settlements.
The Geopolitical Hypothesis builds on theories of economic nationalism (Greenfeld 2001) and neo-mercantilism (Helleiner 2021) that argue states have autonomous interests rooted in international competition. Traditionally, neo-mercantilist strategies used trade protectionism, capital controls, and state-led industrial policy to manipulate market forces. In the era of globalization, traditional tools became less viable, leading non-hegemonic states to adopt new defensive strategies (Balaam and Dillman 2015). This article draws on post-Keynesian literature on growth models (Baccaro and Pontusson 2019) as well as on IR literature (Thorhallsson and Steinsson 2018) and it identifies two such strategies.
A foreign demand–led strategy, based on austerity, low labor costs, and competitiveness to increase exports and attract investment, fortifies the state’s external economic position. While neoliberal in appearance, it reduces dependence on external patrons. Conversely, a domestic demand–led strategy, coupled with external shelter, is based on the expansion of private consumption, investment, and government spending, which finances the excess domestic demand through hegemonic economic assistance. In exchange for assistance, the non-hegemonic state gives up a portion of its sovereignty.
The Geopolitical Hypothesis argues that non-hegemonic states choose their growth strategies based on external considerations—the quest for sovereignty and its costs—rather than on the struggle of domestic actors for power. The existing literature on Israel’s neoliberal turn emphasizes either statecentered explanations (focusing on the rise of fiscal and monetary authorities) or society-centered explanations (emphasizing the role of domestic interest groups). The Geopolitical Hypothesis presents an alternative perspective by emphasizing the influence of the political elite’s foreign policy orientation on shaping growth strategies.
The article employs an explaining-outcome process tracing to reconstruct a causal narrative linking the hawkish elite’s valuation of sovereignty to the adoption of an external-demand-led strategy. Empirical analysis draws on macroeconomic data, protocols of the Knesset Finance Committee, government reports, elite statements, and secondary literature. The analysis covers two sub-periods: The Formative Phase (2003–2008), marked by export-led growth, foreign investment, suppressed domestic demand, and separation between the “conflict” and “market” arenas; and the Institutionalization and Adaptation Phase (2009–2022), when the strategy was consolidated and adjusted to shocks including the global financial crisis, COVID-19, and the Abraham Accords.
The article presents four types of findings:
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Historical evidence supports that the 1990s domestic demand–oriented model depended on the peace process and U.S. assistance. This underscores causal links between dovish politics, higher living standards, and lower inequality.
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Evidence supports a causal link between the Second Intifada and the export- and investment-oriented model in the formative period of security neoliberalism, shown through quantitative data and policy-maker documents.
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Evidence supports the claim that security neoliberalism operated in line with hawkish elite expectations during both its formative and institutionalized phases, strengthening Israel’s external economic position.
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And finally, evidence supports the claim that the hawkish elite placed high weight on external sovereignty, pursued economic policy consistent with this, and reduced U.S. leverage over Israel’s policies during this period.
The Israeli case shows that economic dependence is not just structural but a political strategy that has costs and benefits. Whereas for Rabin’s government pursuing external sovereignty was useless and costly, it was essential for the hawkish elite. The hawkish elite pursued a growth strategy that prioritized external de facto sovereignty over social equity, accepting regressive outcomes to avoid foreign policy constraints. Security Neoliberalism—neoliberal in form but geopolitically motivated— captures this dynamic. Unlike conventional neoliberalism, its aim was strategic: maintaining territorial control, resisting diplomatic pressure, and diversifying alliances. The Geopolitical Hypothesis contributes to comparative political economy by integrating international security into domestic growth model analysis. It suggests that in non-hegemonic states, variation in elites’ valuation of sovereignty explains the choice between domestic-demand-led and external-demand-led strategies.
The article reinterprets Israel’s post-2000 economic history: what seemed a technocratic neoliberal consensus was politically driven by foreign policy orientation. The strategy’s collapse in 2023–2024—amid the judicial overhaul crisis and Gaza war—exposed its fragility, collapsing the separation between market and conflict, re-exposing the economy to security risks, and renewing dependence on U.S. support.
Keywords: Geopolitical Hypothesis; Security Neoliberalism; External Sovereignty; Export-led Growth; Israeli Political Economy