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How the Military’s Social Composition Affects Political Protest: The Case of Israel
Author(s) -
Levy Yagil
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
peace and change
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1468-0130
pISSN - 0149-0508
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-0130.2009.00615.x
Subject(s) - politics , composition (language) , attrition , state (computer science) , mobilization , political economy , military sociology , collective action , political science , military operations other than war , spanish civil war , law , sociology , medicine , philosophy , linguistics , dentistry , algorithm , computer science
Observation of Israeli politics over the last twenty‐five years reveals fluctuations in the state’s internal ability in directing and implementing military policies. One way to identify these changes is by looking at the three wars that Israel has waged with Lebanon. We see a transition from the protests that twice led to Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon following the First Lebanon War (1982–1985) and the South Lebanon War of Attrition (1985–2000). In both of these cases, the war’s very purpose was questioned by protesters. In contrast, the protests that followed the Second Lebanon War (2006) focused on the military’s performance while justification for the war was not the issue. There is a link between the social composition of the military, reflected specifically in the social map of the fatalities, and the bereavement discourse, which is one of the driving forces behind collective action against war. The larger the presence of middle‐class groups in the military, the stronger the likelihood for protest to emerge from the ranks in the form of bereavement discourse, and vice versa.