Joel S. Migdal

Baruch Kimmerling

A History

The Palestinian People

Recent events have dealt the Palestinians a series of major blows that have discredited their leaders and apparently sidelined their cause in the shifting sands of Middle Eastern politics. But as the authors argue, the Palestinians may have reached a breakthrough in their long-standing impasse with Israel, as a new generation of leaders may be willing to abandon anti-Zionism.

The Making of a People

Palestinians

Why do many Asian, African, and Latin American states have such difficulty in directing the behavior of their populations--in spite of the resources at their disposal? And why do a small number of other states succeed in such control? What effect do failing laws and social policies have on the state itself? In answering these questions, Joel Migdal takes a new look at the role of the state in the third world. Strong Societies and Weak States offers a fresh approach to the study of state-society relations and to the possibilities for economic and political reforms in the third world. In Asia, Africa, and Latin America, state institutions have established a permanent presence among the populations of even the most remote villages. A close look at the performance of these agencies, however, reveals that often they operate on principles radically different from those conceived by their founders and creators in the capital city. Migdal proposes an answer to this paradox: a model of state-society relations that highlights the state's struggle with other social organizations and a theory that explains the differing abilities of states to predominate in those struggles.

State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World

Strong Societies and Weak States

Through the Lens of Israel illuminates Israeli history through the use of the author's unique state-in-society approach, and, at the same time, refines, develops, and expands that approach. The book provides a window for the formation of Israeli state and society during the twentieth century, while using the Israeli experience to ask how social scientists can better investigate and understand other societies as well. Three central themes of Israeli history are at the core of the analysis—state formation, society formation, and the mutually constitutive roles of state and society. By analyzing how Israel's state and society continually reconstruct one another, Migdal addresses larger questions with resonance far beyond Israel: How do particular societies and states end up with their distinctive character? How are the rules that shape everyday behavior determined? Who gains from these rules and who loses? And how and when do these rules and patterns of privilege change?

Explorations in State and Society

Through the Lens of Israel

Robert F Philip Professor of International Studies Joel S Migdal

Migdal Joel S.

The essays in this book trace the development of Joel Migdal's "state-in-society" approach. The essays situate the approach within the classic literature in political science, sociology, and related disciplines but present a new model for understanding state-society relations. It allies parts of the state and groups in society against other such coalitions, determines how societies and states create and maintain distinct ways of structuring day-to-day life, the nature of the rules that govern people's behavior, whom they benefit and whom they disadvantage, which sorts of elements unite people and which divide them, and what shared meaning people hold about their relations with others and their place in the world.

Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another

State in Society

State-society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World

Reşat Kasaba

Ellis Goldberg

"In recent years there has been a marked growth in the number and influence of social movements and organizations working to expand social, political, and civil rights, and to constrain the power of the states in many countries in the Middle East. At the same time many of the regimes in the area have introduced practices and institutions designed to make their rule more democratic in order to enhance their domestic and international standing and legitimacy, as well as to spur economic growth." "As a whole, the book demonstrates that neither the region's overgrown state structures nor the corresponding weakness of autonomous societal organizations can be explained by referring to cultural characteristics of the people in the Middle East or to the precepts of their religions. True explanations, the authors argue, should be framed historically. They pay special attention to the relations among the various groups and regions of the Middle East and to those between the Middle East and western Europe. The authors emphasize the important role played by economic issues and constraints in broadening or narrowing the scope of democracy at various points in time; and finally, they are in agreement in seeing religion and culture of the Middle East not in static and essentialist terms but as dynamic phenomena that grow independently and even in opposition to existing political authorities."--BOOK JACKET.

Joel S. Migdal

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