Backsliding without Democracy
The Effects of Israel's Democratic Backsliding on the Palestinian Territories
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Abstract
This article analyzes the effects of Israel's democratic backsliding on the Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. While research on democratic backsliding focuses on the erosion of liberal democratic features and how this influences democracies’ citizenry, Israel's composite regime offers a unique setting: an established (albeit weakened) liberal democracy ‘within the Green Line’ alongside an established occupation devoid of democratic features ‘beyond the Green Line.’ Exploring this, I analyze how Israel's belligerent occupation has at times been restrained by the ‘democratic side’ of the country, resulting in Palestinians indirectly benefiting from Israel's democracy while not having democratic rights themselves. The article thus demonstrates how Palestinians may be among the first populations to suffer from democratic backsliding while themselves being devoid of democratic rights.
Contributor Notes
ALON BURSTEIN is a Visiting Assistant Professor and an Israel Institute Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of California Irvine. His research focuses primarily on comparative social mobilization, analyzing the dynamics that lead groups and collectives to adopt different violent and nonviolent tactics as they mobilize. Research projects, exploring mobilization in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Middle East, and internationally, have been published in Terrorism and Political Violence, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Israel Studies, and International Interactions. Email: alon.burstein@uci.edu