Nir Gazit
Biographic Data
| ID | 3684132 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nir Gazit |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nir |
| FAMILY NAME | Gazit |
| SIGNATURE | GAZIT N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Ruppin Academic Center |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8807-6530 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 119 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Suspended Belonging
This article examines identity transformation among Israeli combat volunteers in the Russia-Ukraine war. It argues that the intersection of transmigration and foreign military service produces a form of deterritorialized belonging that destabilizes rather than consolidates collective identity. Drawing on biographical interviews with thirty Israeli volunteers – many of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants from the former USSR – the study …
Civilian 'soft' militarism through informal education in Israel
The civil society organization HaShomer HaChadash (The New Guard) attempts to fill a security gap in Israel's periphery by tackling the continuous threat of what it frames as 'agricultural terrorism' by securing farms in combination with a wide array of educational activities that emphasize the importance of agriculture, and simultaneously include the teaching of military themes (such as leadership, heroism, and sacrifice) and military skills tra…
Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants-Two Decades On
The choice of our article-Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants-for the 50th anniversary of Armed Forces & Society special issue indicates heightened interest in reserve forces and recognition of their organizational and social uniqueness. At base of our previous publications was an implicit assumption that reservists belong to diverse and representative social and cultural groups. In other words, we did not explicitly address the issues of the socia…
Civil-religious policing in Israel’s periphery
The Israeli organisation HaShomer HaChadash (The New Guard) attempts to fill a gap of security in Israel’s periphery that, in the organisation’s words, falls prey to ‘agricultural terrorism’, such as theft and arson. This main mission is com-bined with education and cultural activities. The organisation has expanded into a conglomerate that provides security services to farmers and orchestrates countless educational and cultural programmes. We ar…
Weaponized volunteering' and re-considering the volunteering-weaponization divide
This introductory chapter to the monograph issue Weaponized Volunteering explicates and situates the theoretical and conceptual problems the collection addresses. It defines the concept of 'weaponized volunteering' and analyzes its importance for understanding the relations between contemporary trends of moralization and militarization or securitization. It does so by providing a brief genealogy of the concept of 'volunteering' and the rising pub…
Securitized volunteerism and neo-nationalism in Israel's rural periphery
Contemporary volunteering is often considered a neoliberal phenomenon that has become prevalent in an era of post-national sentiments and individualism. Although it is frequently depicted as non-political, it may serve the promotion of political agendas, such as neo-nationalism, outside the traditional frame of the state and its institutions. This becomes particularly salient when non-governmental organizations practice volunteering in ways that …
Liquid Legitimacy
During the past decades, militaries have increasingly used force against civilians and armed adversaries in operational settings other than war. Theories about legitimacy for the use of military force often focus on macro variables such as international law, government policy, and structural political contingencies. The strength of such theories in explaining military violence during conventional wars notwithstanding, this article argues that the…
Introduction to the Armed Forces & Society Forum on Military Reserves in the 'New Wars
This Armed Forces & Society forum is dedicated to exploring recent trends in the characteristics of military reserves and of the changing character of reserve forces within the armed forces within the military, the civilian sphere, and in between them. To bring new and critical perspectives to the study of reserve forces and civil-military relations, this introduction and the five articles that follow draw on two organizing conceptual models: The…
Military Covenants and Contracts in Motion
This article reexamines and develops the analytical metaphor of 'Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants' in three directions. First, we advance the notion of transmigration by linking it to the explicit and implicit 'contracts' or agreements struck between the military and individuals and groups within and outside of it. Second, we show that the 'management' model of reserve forces is not just an administrative matter but that 'negotiating' with reser…
Military (Non-)Policing in the Occupied Territories
Since 1967, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been engaged in various military missions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including occasional high-intensity fighting and counter-insurgency, as well as civilian duties, such as administration and policing. While existing literature emphasizes the organizational and professional burden this combination of duties places on the military, the actual forces that shape soldiers’ policing pract…
The Convergence of Military Conduct and Policing in Israeli-Controlled Territories
The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States in May 2020 and the subsequent turmoil, as well as the violence against migrants on the US-Mexican border, have drawn major public and media attention to the phenomenon of police brutality (see, e.g., Levin 2020; Misra 2018; Taub 2020), which is often labeled as ‘militarization of police’. At the same time, in recent years military forces have been increasingly involved in polici…
The Fickle Zone
This article is about the intrinsic inconsistency of human actions and relations near the Egyptian-Israeli border. We consider the border and its vicinity at a time of change, when asylum seekers were crossing into Israel in growing numbers (2006–2012) and then when a fence was being built in response (2012–2014). We are basing our findings on an ethnographic study conducted between 2012 and 2018, in which we explored how different border populat…
Juggling Logics on the Egyptian-Israeli Borderland
The following article investigates two interconnected border logics-securitization and humanitarianism-as they unfold as part of soldiers' border experiences. We wish to show the alternating implementation of these two logics and to elaborate on how are they bound together. Our ethnographic fieldwork was conducted between 2012 and 2014 along a section of the Israeli-Egyptian border, consisting of observations, as well as off-site interviews with …
Military Violence in Its Own Right
In this article, we use the case of the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories to offer a microsociological analysis of military violence in noncombat situations. Utilizing the insights of Randall Collins, we suggest that in order understand these encounters, the emotional dimensions of violent behaviors must be linked to the interactional dynamics that trigger the transformation of these emotions into violent actions. We revi…
State-sponsored Vigilantism
This article examines the patterns and political implications of Jewish settler violence and vigilantism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Rather than viewing these attacks as deviant social behaviour and a by-product of the political chaos in the West Bank, this article sees settler violence as an informal political mechanism that structures and reproduces political control in the service of the state. The analysis presents the structural…
Spatial Alternatives and Counter-Sovereignties in Israel/Palestine
The securitization of the spaces of Israeli-Palestinian interaction, from checkpoints to the West Bank Separation Wall, continues to intensify and receive attention from journalists, scholars, and activists. Understandably, the focus is on the negative consequences of existing spatial configurations. Receiving far less attention is the development of alternative spatial formations which might advance forms of “desecuritization,” especially in tho…
State-directed political assassination in Israel
Extant theories explain reasonably well why the Israeli state exercises a given level of violence against substate actors. Based on economic or sociological models of human action, these theories attribute the level of state violence, respectively, to the narrow cost-benefit calculations of state officials or the institutionally embedded norms that govern their deliberations. The strength of such theories notwithstanding, this article argues that…
Boundaries in Interaction
Boundary work projects are relevant in any social context, but they seem to carry particular significance in multicultural or multinational and highly contested urban settings. This study examines how daily artifacts such as local newspapers are used by various urban social groups in their local boundary work projects. the analysis is based on the particular case of West Jerusalem, and focuses on how Jewish communities use the popular local Jerus…
Studying-Up and Studying-Across
Social Agency, Spatial Practices, and Power
Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants
This article suggests a new perspective for examining the particular social and organizational characteristics of military reserves forces and the special experiences of serving in the reserves. To illustrate the unique social position of reservists, the authors develop a theoretical model that likens them to transmigrants. Accordingly, the authors suggest that society may benefit from looking at reserves both as sorts of social and organizationa…
Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants
This article suggests a new perspective for examining the particular social and organizational characteristics of military reserves forces and the special experiences of serving in the reserves. To illustrate the unique social position of reservists, the authors develop a theoretical model that likens them to transmigrants. Accordingly, the authors suggest that society may benefit from looking at reserves both as sorts of social and organizationa…
Social Agency, Spatial Practices, and Power
State-sponsored Vigilantism
This article examines the patterns and political implications of Jewish settler violence and vigilantism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Rather than viewing these attacks as deviant social behaviour and a by-product of the political chaos in the West Bank, this article sees settler violence as an informal political mechanism that structures and reproduces political control in the service of the state. The analysis presents the structural…
Military Covenants and Contracts in Motion
This article reexamines and develops the analytical metaphor of 'Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants' in three directions. First, we advance the notion of transmigration by linking it to the explicit and implicit 'contracts' or agreements struck between the military and individuals and groups within and outside of it. Second, we show that the 'management' model of reserve forces is not just an administrative matter but that 'negotiating' with reser…
Boundaries in Interaction
Boundary work projects are relevant in any social context, but they seem to carry particular significance in multicultural or multinational and highly contested urban settings. This study examines how daily artifacts such as local newspapers are used by various urban social groups in their local boundary work projects. the analysis is based on the particular case of West Jerusalem, and focuses on how Jewish communities use the popular local Jerus…
Military (Non-)Policing in the Occupied Territories
Since 1967, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been engaged in various military missions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including occasional high-intensity fighting and counter-insurgency, as well as civilian duties, such as administration and policing. While existing literature emphasizes the organizational and professional burden this combination of duties places on the military, the actual forces that shape soldiers’ policing pract…
Military Violence in Its Own Right
In this article, we use the case of the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories to offer a microsociological analysis of military violence in noncombat situations. Utilizing the insights of Randall Collins, we suggest that in order understand these encounters, the emotional dimensions of violent behaviors must be linked to the interactional dynamics that trigger the transformation of these emotions into violent actions. We revi…
Spatial Alternatives and Counter-Sovereignties in Israel/Palestine
The securitization of the spaces of Israeli-Palestinian interaction, from checkpoints to the West Bank Separation Wall, continues to intensify and receive attention from journalists, scholars, and activists. Understandably, the focus is on the negative consequences of existing spatial configurations. Receiving far less attention is the development of alternative spatial formations which might advance forms of “desecuritization,” especially in tho…
Studying-Up and Studying-Across
Civilian 'soft' militarism through informal education in Israel
The civil society organization HaShomer HaChadash (The New Guard) attempts to fill a security gap in Israel's periphery by tackling the continuous threat of what it frames as 'agricultural terrorism' by securing farms in combination with a wide array of educational activities that emphasize the importance of agriculture, and simultaneously include the teaching of military themes (such as leadership, heroism, and sacrifice) and military skills tra…
The Fickle Zone
This article is about the intrinsic inconsistency of human actions and relations near the Egyptian-Israeli border. We consider the border and its vicinity at a time of change, when asylum seekers were crossing into Israel in growing numbers (2006–2012) and then when a fence was being built in response (2012–2014). We are basing our findings on an ethnographic study conducted between 2012 and 2018, in which we explored how different border populat…
Juggling Logics on the Egyptian-Israeli Borderland
The following article investigates two interconnected border logics-securitization and humanitarianism-as they unfold as part of soldiers' border experiences. We wish to show the alternating implementation of these two logics and to elaborate on how are they bound together. Our ethnographic fieldwork was conducted between 2012 and 2014 along a section of the Israeli-Egyptian border, consisting of observations, as well as off-site interviews with …
State-directed political assassination in Israel
Extant theories explain reasonably well why the Israeli state exercises a given level of violence against substate actors. Based on economic or sociological models of human action, these theories attribute the level of state violence, respectively, to the narrow cost-benefit calculations of state officials or the institutionally embedded norms that govern their deliberations. The strength of such theories notwithstanding, this article argues that…
Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants-Two Decades On
The choice of our article-Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants-for the 50th anniversary of Armed Forces & Society special issue indicates heightened interest in reserve forces and recognition of their organizational and social uniqueness. At base of our previous publications was an implicit assumption that reservists belong to diverse and representative social and cultural groups. In other words, we did not explicitly address the issues of the socia…
Civil-religious policing in Israel’s periphery
The Israeli organisation HaShomer HaChadash (The New Guard) attempts to fill a gap of security in Israel’s periphery that, in the organisation’s words, falls prey to ‘agricultural terrorism’, such as theft and arson. This main mission is com-bined with education and cultural activities. The organisation has expanded into a conglomerate that provides security services to farmers and orchestrates countless educational and cultural programmes. We ar…
Weaponized volunteering' and re-considering the volunteering-weaponization divide
This introductory chapter to the monograph issue Weaponized Volunteering explicates and situates the theoretical and conceptual problems the collection addresses. It defines the concept of 'weaponized volunteering' and analyzes its importance for understanding the relations between contemporary trends of moralization and militarization or securitization. It does so by providing a brief genealogy of the concept of 'volunteering' and the rising pub…
Securitized volunteerism and neo-nationalism in Israel's rural periphery
Contemporary volunteering is often considered a neoliberal phenomenon that has become prevalent in an era of post-national sentiments and individualism. Although it is frequently depicted as non-political, it may serve the promotion of political agendas, such as neo-nationalism, outside the traditional frame of the state and its institutions. This becomes particularly salient when non-governmental organizations practice volunteering in ways that …
Liquid Legitimacy
During the past decades, militaries have increasingly used force against civilians and armed adversaries in operational settings other than war. Theories about legitimacy for the use of military force often focus on macro variables such as international law, government policy, and structural political contingencies. The strength of such theories in explaining military violence during conventional wars notwithstanding, this article argues that the…
Introduction to the Armed Forces & Society Forum on Military Reserves in the 'New Wars
This Armed Forces & Society forum is dedicated to exploring recent trends in the characteristics of military reserves and of the changing character of reserve forces within the armed forces within the military, the civilian sphere, and in between them. To bring new and critical perspectives to the study of reserve forces and civil-military relations, this introduction and the five articles that follow draw on two organizing conceptual models: The…
Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants
This article suggests a new perspective for examining the particular social and organizational characteristics of military reserves forces and the special experiences of serving in the reserves. To illustrate the unique social position of reservists, the authors develop a theoretical model that likens them to transmigrants. Accordingly, the authors suggest that society may benefit from looking at reserves both as sorts of social and organizationa…
Social Agency, Spatial Practices, and Power
Boundaries in Interaction
Boundary work projects are relevant in any social context, but they seem to carry particular significance in multicultural or multinational and highly contested urban settings. This study examines how daily artifacts such as local newspapers are used by various urban social groups in their local boundary work projects. the analysis is based on the particular case of West Jerusalem, and focuses on how Jewish communities use the popular local Jerus…
Studying-Up and Studying-Across
State-directed political assassination in Israel
Extant theories explain reasonably well why the Israeli state exercises a given level of violence against substate actors. Based on economic or sociological models of human action, these theories attribute the level of state violence, respectively, to the narrow cost-benefit calculations of state officials or the institutionally embedded norms that govern their deliberations. The strength of such theories notwithstanding, this article argues that…
Spatial Alternatives and Counter-Sovereignties in Israel/Palestine
The securitization of the spaces of Israeli-Palestinian interaction, from checkpoints to the West Bank Separation Wall, continues to intensify and receive attention from journalists, scholars, and activists. Understandably, the focus is on the negative consequences of existing spatial configurations. Receiving far less attention is the development of alternative spatial formations which might advance forms of “desecuritization,” especially in tho…
State-sponsored Vigilantism
This article examines the patterns and political implications of Jewish settler violence and vigilantism in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Rather than viewing these attacks as deviant social behaviour and a by-product of the political chaos in the West Bank, this article sees settler violence as an informal political mechanism that structures and reproduces political control in the service of the state. The analysis presents the structural…
Military Violence in Its Own Right
In this article, we use the case of the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories to offer a microsociological analysis of military violence in noncombat situations. Utilizing the insights of Randall Collins, we suggest that in order understand these encounters, the emotional dimensions of violent behaviors must be linked to the interactional dynamics that trigger the transformation of these emotions into violent actions. We revi…
Juggling Logics on the Egyptian-Israeli Borderland
The following article investigates two interconnected border logics-securitization and humanitarianism-as they unfold as part of soldiers' border experiences. We wish to show the alternating implementation of these two logics and to elaborate on how are they bound together. Our ethnographic fieldwork was conducted between 2012 and 2014 along a section of the Israeli-Egyptian border, consisting of observations, as well as off-site interviews with …
Military (Non-)Policing in the Occupied Territories
Since 1967, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been engaged in various military missions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including occasional high-intensity fighting and counter-insurgency, as well as civilian duties, such as administration and policing. While existing literature emphasizes the organizational and professional burden this combination of duties places on the military, the actual forces that shape soldiers’ policing pract…
The Convergence of Military Conduct and Policing in Israeli-Controlled Territories
The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in the United States in May 2020 and the subsequent turmoil, as well as the violence against migrants on the US-Mexican border, have drawn major public and media attention to the phenomenon of police brutality (see, e.g., Levin 2020; Misra 2018; Taub 2020), which is often labeled as ‘militarization of police’. At the same time, in recent years military forces have been increasingly involved in polici…
The Fickle Zone
This article is about the intrinsic inconsistency of human actions and relations near the Egyptian-Israeli border. We consider the border and its vicinity at a time of change, when asylum seekers were crossing into Israel in growing numbers (2006–2012) and then when a fence was being built in response (2012–2014). We are basing our findings on an ethnographic study conducted between 2012 and 2018, in which we explored how different border populat…
Introduction to the Armed Forces & Society Forum on Military Reserves in the 'New Wars
This Armed Forces & Society forum is dedicated to exploring recent trends in the characteristics of military reserves and of the changing character of reserve forces within the armed forces within the military, the civilian sphere, and in between them. To bring new and critical perspectives to the study of reserve forces and civil-military relations, this introduction and the five articles that follow draw on two organizing conceptual models: The…
Military Covenants and Contracts in Motion
This article reexamines and develops the analytical metaphor of 'Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants' in three directions. First, we advance the notion of transmigration by linking it to the explicit and implicit 'contracts' or agreements struck between the military and individuals and groups within and outside of it. Second, we show that the 'management' model of reserve forces is not just an administrative matter but that 'negotiating' with reser…
Civil-religious policing in Israel’s periphery
The Israeli organisation HaShomer HaChadash (The New Guard) attempts to fill a gap of security in Israel’s periphery that, in the organisation’s words, falls prey to ‘agricultural terrorism’, such as theft and arson. This main mission is com-bined with education and cultural activities. The organisation has expanded into a conglomerate that provides security services to farmers and orchestrates countless educational and cultural programmes. We ar…
Weaponized volunteering' and re-considering the volunteering-weaponization divide
This introductory chapter to the monograph issue Weaponized Volunteering explicates and situates the theoretical and conceptual problems the collection addresses. It defines the concept of 'weaponized volunteering' and analyzes its importance for understanding the relations between contemporary trends of moralization and militarization or securitization. It does so by providing a brief genealogy of the concept of 'volunteering' and the rising pub…
Securitized volunteerism and neo-nationalism in Israel's rural periphery
Contemporary volunteering is often considered a neoliberal phenomenon that has become prevalent in an era of post-national sentiments and individualism. Although it is frequently depicted as non-political, it may serve the promotion of political agendas, such as neo-nationalism, outside the traditional frame of the state and its institutions. This becomes particularly salient when non-governmental organizations practice volunteering in ways that …
Liquid Legitimacy
During the past decades, militaries have increasingly used force against civilians and armed adversaries in operational settings other than war. Theories about legitimacy for the use of military force often focus on macro variables such as international law, government policy, and structural political contingencies. The strength of such theories in explaining military violence during conventional wars notwithstanding, this article argues that the…
Civilian 'soft' militarism through informal education in Israel
The civil society organization HaShomer HaChadash (The New Guard) attempts to fill a security gap in Israel's periphery by tackling the continuous threat of what it frames as 'agricultural terrorism' by securing farms in combination with a wide array of educational activities that emphasize the importance of agriculture, and simultaneously include the teaching of military themes (such as leadership, heroism, and sacrifice) and military skills tra…
Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants-Two Decades On
The choice of our article-Reserve Soldiers as Transmigrants-for the 50th anniversary of Armed Forces & Society special issue indicates heightened interest in reserve forces and recognition of their organizational and social uniqueness. At base of our previous publications was an implicit assumption that reservists belong to diverse and representative social and cultural groups. In other words, we did not explicitly address the issues of the socia…
Suspended Belonging
This article examines identity transformation among Israeli combat volunteers in the Russia-Ukraine war. It argues that the intersection of transmigration and foreign military service produces a form of deterritorialized belonging that destabilizes rather than consolidates collective identity. Drawing on biographical interviews with thirty Israeli volunteers – many of whom are immigrants or children of immigrants from the former USSR – the study …
Political science (19 works) · Law (18 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Politics (14 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (13 works) · Law (10 works) · Political economy (10 works) · Middle East Politics and Society (8 works) · Gender, Security, and Conflict (7 works) · Criminology (6 works)