Eitan Y Alimi
Biographic Data
| ID | 369746 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eitan Y Alimi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eitan Y |
| FAMILY NAME | Alimi |
| SIGNATURE | ALIMI E Y |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2871-9602 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 30 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 194 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Unpacking the effects of repression on contention
Long-standing recognition of the multiple dimensions of the effects of state repression on popular contention and resistance has seen few attempts to explore these dimensions comprehensively and interrelatedly. We propose an analytical framework that captures the multi-dimensional effects of state repression on contention during cycles of armed conflict, focusing on four widely agreed upon, recurring dimensions: behavioral, cognitive-emotional, i…
Political Process, State Actions, and Variations in Insurgent Violence
Expanding on the political process approach to the relationship between state actions and violent mobilization, we argue that the state’s structure of political opportunities and threats (or SPOT) informs and is informed by the repressive and conciliatory actions the state employs. We further argue that changes in the state’s SPOT shape its capacity to effectively implement discriminate or indiscriminate repressive and conciliatory actions, with …
Army embeddedness, political opportunities and threats, and the dynamics of contention
In many Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, the army has traditionally been a central pillar of the authoritarian regimes, responsible for the security and integrity of the state and a symbol of national sovereignty and social unity. Nevertheless, the 2011 Arab revolts witnessed stark differences in the response of the armies. This article argues that a relational reading of the Structure of Political Opportunities and Threats, particu…
Rethinking Moving beyond Deterrence
We assess Dugan and Chenoweth’s Rational Choice-based argument regarding moderating effects of indiscriminate conciliatory state actions on levels of terrorist attacks in Israel-Palestine, utilizing data drawn primarily from declassified security records on Israeli state actions during the First Intifada (1987–1992). This type of data source, we argue, contains a more accurate ratio of conciliatory to repressive actions than Dugan and Chenoweth’s…
Beyond the media’s radar
This article presents the Intifada Non-Media-Based Dataset (INMBD). Drawing primarily on the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) daily field reports, the INMBD contains day-level observations of wide-ranging types, modes, and forms of contentious events involving multitudes of parties and actors in the Israeli-Palestinian cycle of contention, known as the First Intifada (1987–1993). Each event – defined as a collective action, claim, message, or decision…
Relational Radicalization
Struggling to Remain Relevant”
The role of cognitive mechanisms in processes of radicalization cannot be overestimated. However, focusing solely on violence-prone values and ideologies without examining how they gain and lose consequentiality in the context of relational dynamics, hampers our understanding of the shift from support for, to actual engagement in political violence. Using a case of nonradicalization-the predominantly nonviolent struggle of Jewish settlers against…
Focusing on Focusing Events
Despite the prevalent assumption among scholars of social movements and contentious politics that transformative contentious events are also the focus of public attention and discussion, there has been little attempt to substantiate this. After making a case for why to focus on focusing events and suggesting that these events should be thought of as products of a dialogical contentious meaning‐making process, we develop a coverage attribute‐based…
Making sense of ‘Price Tag’ violence
Writings on the fringe Jewish settler grassroots network known as the Hilltop Youth have proliferated in recent years, following the increase in violent activism associated with the network. But knowledge on this violent activism, called Price Tag, has remained conflicting and problematic. Central questions persist: What is the meaning of Price Tag violence? What explains the increase in the rate and salience of Price Tag violence? What are the s…
Popular Contention, Regime, and Transition
This book puts the recent Arab revolts in comparative global perspective, as a means to a larger end: to flesh out similarities and to draw parallels between democratic and authoritarian-like regimes. It is based on the notion that while contention in authoritarian settings is different from that in liberal democratic ones, it is not different in kind. Consciously avoiding a teleological-like normative approach and while respecting and being mind…
The Relational Context of Radicalization
Why is it that social movements engaged in contention sometimes experience radicalization of member factions? This article argues that relational practices of contacts, ties, exchange of information and bargaining among the contending parties mediate the influence of violence-prone ideologies as well as impulses, incentives and motives for aggression on actual engagement in political violence. A mechanism-based comparison of two similar yet diffe…
The Dynamics of Radicalization
Why is it that some social movements engaged in contentious politics experience radicalization whereas others do not? The Dynamics of Radicalization offers an innovative reply by investigating how and when social movement organizations switch from a nonviolent mode of contention to a violent one. Moving beyond existing explanations that posit aggressive motivations, grievances or violence-prone ideologies, this book demonstrates how these factors…
Response to Aran and Hassner's “Religious Violence in Judaism
Additional informationNotes on contributorsEitan Y. AlimiEitan Y. Alimi is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University
A Methodology Analyzing for Frame Dynamics
This article develops a methodological approach that draws on Goffman's original framing concepts of "primary frameworks," "keying processes," and "frame rims" to capture the influence of fundamental cultural templates in framing dynamics, and how framing develops sequentially among different SMOs in the dynamics of political contention. We propose that frames can be analyzed in terms of three fundamental components: collective identity (the subj…
Primary Frameworks, Keying and the Dynamics of Contentious Politics
Expanding on McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly's approach to the study of contentious episodes, we develop a conceptual framework to analyze front-stage politics in the light of back-stage cultural and interpretative processes, drawing upon the Chechen and the Palestinian national movements. We elaborate on Goffman's original notion of ‘primary frameworks’ to capture the influence of fundamental cultural templates, and his concept of ‘keying processes’ to…
Relational Dynamics and Processes of Radicalization
We propose an explanatory framework for the comparative study of radicalization that focuses on its "how" and "when" questions. We build on the relational tradition in the study of social movements and contentious politics by expanding on a mechanism-process research strategy. Attentive to similarities as well as to dissimilarities, our comparative framework traces processes of radicalization by delineating four key arenas of interaction—between …
Structure of Political Opportunities and Threats, and Movement-Countermovement Interaction in Segmented Composite Regimes
Occupy Israel
In between the Arab Spring and the US Occupy movement, Israel has had its share in demonstrating the people's power against unjust authority in general and socioeconomic wrongs in particular. This paper analyzes the context, rapid growth and yet swift abatement of the Israeli protest-tent summer of 2011. I argue that the reasons for the shortly lived Israeli protest summer related more to difficulties in coping with intra-movement challenges, fra…
Seasons of Change
The events that began in Tunisia with Mohamed Bouazizi’s dramatic suicide in December of 2010 and continue to develop throughout the Middle East challenge our politics and our political imaginations. The challenges to social science theories of movements, revolutions and social change are likely less pressing than those to contemporary politics, but they are the ones that we are better prepared to engage. The wave of political contention in the M…
Relational dynamics in factional adoption of terrorist tactics
Mobilizing Under the Gun
Although episodes of contentious politics in undemocratic regimes constitute the lion's share of contentious political events worldwide, the theorizing of political opportunity structures is based largely on contentious episodes in democratic/liberal political settings. This anomaly hampers recent attempts to redefine the boundaries among episodes of contention across time and place. Employing the case of the first Palestinian Intifada (1987-1992…
News Media and Peace Building in Asymmetrical Conflicts
This study explores the role of the news media in asymmetrical conflicts after countries have signed a peace agreement. While most research has focused on the inherently negative role the press plays in attempts to bring peace, this study attempts to look at this issue using a more dynamic perspective. The theoretical argument focuses on how political factors affect the quantity and quality of the news flow and some of the ways in which leaders c…
Israeli Politics and the First Palestinian Intifada
As the Palestinian/Israeli conflict continues to be of major importance in the Middle East, this book employs a new agency approach to understanding the conflict, examining the unprecedented challenge mounted by Palestinian insurgents to Israeli military rule in the West Bank and Gaza between 1987 and 1992. In particular the book discusses how the Palestinians learned about their occupier and how knowledge of Israeli political divisions were used…
Discursive Contention
The framing process of political opportunity to act contentiously is examined as a unique type of interaction between news media and social movements, where media institutions act as a forum for reflecting and constructing oppositional views to unfolding political processes. The case of Palestinian contention during the run-up to the “first” Intifada is employed to illustrate the role of “mobilized print media” in framing of opportunity to act co…
The Dialectic of Opportunities and Threats and Temporality of Contention
Analysis of Palestinian contention in the years leading to the first Intifada illustrates how state action aimed at demobilizing challengers can have the opposite effect. The Palestinian construction of a shared perception of opportunities and threats (a process best thought of as a meaning-laden dialectic of opportunities and threats) can explain this inverse relation between repression and contention. Content analysis of the Palestinian print m…
Mobilizing Under the Gun
Although episodes of contentious politics in undemocratic regimes constitute the lion's share of contentious political events worldwide, the theorizing of political opportunity structures is based largely on contentious episodes in democratic/liberal political settings. This anomaly hampers recent attempts to redefine the boundaries among episodes of contention across time and place. Employing the case of the first Palestinian Intifada (1987-1992…
Relational Dynamics and Processes of Radicalization
We propose an explanatory framework for the comparative study of radicalization that focuses on its "how" and "when" questions. We build on the relational tradition in the study of social movements and contentious politics by expanding on a mechanism-process research strategy. Attentive to similarities as well as to dissimilarities, our comparative framework traces processes of radicalization by delineating four key arenas of interaction—between …
The Dialectic of Opportunities and Threats and Temporality of Contention
Analysis of Palestinian contention in the years leading to the first Intifada illustrates how state action aimed at demobilizing challengers can have the opposite effect. The Palestinian construction of a shared perception of opportunities and threats (a process best thought of as a meaning-laden dialectic of opportunities and threats) can explain this inverse relation between repression and contention. Content analysis of the Palestinian print m…
The Relational Context of Radicalization
Why is it that social movements engaged in contention sometimes experience radicalization of member factions? This article argues that relational practices of contacts, ties, exchange of information and bargaining among the contending parties mediate the influence of violence-prone ideologies as well as impulses, incentives and motives for aggression on actual engagement in political violence. A mechanism-based comparison of two similar yet diffe…
Structure of Political Opportunities and Threats, and Movement-Countermovement Interaction in Segmented Composite Regimes
News Media and Peace Building in Asymmetrical Conflicts
This study explores the role of the news media in asymmetrical conflicts after countries have signed a peace agreement. While most research has focused on the inherently negative role the press plays in attempts to bring peace, this study attempts to look at this issue using a more dynamic perspective. The theoretical argument focuses on how political factors affect the quantity and quality of the news flow and some of the ways in which leaders c…
Constructing Political Opportunity
This article challenges the portrayal of the 1987 Palestinian Intifada as a spontaneous, sudden outburst of contention. Drawing on content analysis data obtained from several Palestinian print news media sources (N=84), it is suggested that a Palestinian shared perception regarding ripe conditions to rebel was constructed throughout 1987. The findings indicate that throughout 1987 there was (a) a significant gradual increase in calls for action a…
Relational dynamics in factional adoption of terrorist tactics
Primary Frameworks, Keying and the Dynamics of Contentious Politics
Expanding on McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly's approach to the study of contentious episodes, we develop a conceptual framework to analyze front-stage politics in the light of back-stage cultural and interpretative processes, drawing upon the Chechen and the Palestinian national movements. We elaborate on Goffman's original notion of ‘primary frameworks’ to capture the influence of fundamental cultural templates, and his concept of ‘keying processes’ to…
Occupy Israel
In between the Arab Spring and the US Occupy movement, Israel has had its share in demonstrating the people's power against unjust authority in general and socioeconomic wrongs in particular. This paper analyzes the context, rapid growth and yet swift abatement of the Israeli protest-tent summer of 2011. I argue that the reasons for the shortly lived Israeli protest summer related more to difficulties in coping with intra-movement challenges, fra…
Focusing on Focusing Events
Despite the prevalent assumption among scholars of social movements and contentious politics that transformative contentious events are also the focus of public attention and discussion, there has been little attempt to substantiate this. After making a case for why to focus on focusing events and suggesting that these events should be thought of as products of a dialogical contentious meaning‐making process, we develop a coverage attribute‐based…
A Methodology Analyzing for Frame Dynamics
This article develops a methodological approach that draws on Goffman's original framing concepts of "primary frameworks," "keying processes," and "frame rims" to capture the influence of fundamental cultural templates in framing dynamics, and how framing develops sequentially among different SMOs in the dynamics of political contention. We propose that frames can be analyzed in terms of three fundamental components: collective identity (the subj…
Knowing Your Adversary
The Israeli Political Arena and Palestinian Contention
Are changes in political conditions objective features of the world or are they ultimately what social movement activists and adherents make of them? The position taken in this article argues that shifts in the Israeli structure of political opportunity, manifested in a series of transformative events, were framed by the Palestinians within the occupied territories as a political opportunity affecting their strategy of contention during the run u…
Seasons of Change
The events that began in Tunisia with Mohamed Bouazizi’s dramatic suicide in December of 2010 and continue to develop throughout the Middle East challenge our politics and our political imaginations. The challenges to social science theories of movements, revolutions and social change are likely less pressing than those to contemporary politics, but they are the ones that we are better prepared to engage. The wave of political contention in the M…
Contextualizing Political Terrorism
An attempt is made to embed the study of political terrorism within the larger phenomenon of Collective Action. It is suggested that the analysis of dynamics within and between components of Collective Action—structure of conflict, a social movement, authorities, and contention—can be beneficial for gaining additional insights into the study of group risk for political terrorism. Using the case of the Tanzim contention with Israeli forces it is d…
The effects of opportunities on insurgencies
There are several overlooked aspects of the 1987 Palestinian intifadah. This article focuses on its specific time context and offers an alternative theoretical framework for explaining it: the political process model. This model addresses the when question of social movements, and specifically, why it was that the Palestinian public participated at such an unprecedented level during the period of the intifadah. Comparison is made with collective …
Making sense of ‘Price Tag’ violence
Writings on the fringe Jewish settler grassroots network known as the Hilltop Youth have proliferated in recent years, following the increase in violent activism associated with the network. But knowledge on this violent activism, called Price Tag, has remained conflicting and problematic. Central questions persist: What is the meaning of Price Tag violence? What explains the increase in the rate and salience of Price Tag violence? What are the s…
Discursive Contention
The framing process of political opportunity to act contentiously is examined as a unique type of interaction between news media and social movements, where media institutions act as a forum for reflecting and constructing oppositional views to unfolding political processes. The case of Palestinian contention during the run-up to the “first” Intifada is employed to illustrate the role of “mobilized print media” in framing of opportunity to act co…
Beyond the media’s radar
This article presents the Intifada Non-Media-Based Dataset (INMBD). Drawing primarily on the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) daily field reports, the INMBD contains day-level observations of wide-ranging types, modes, and forms of contentious events involving multitudes of parties and actors in the Israeli-Palestinian cycle of contention, known as the First Intifada (1987–1993). Each event – defined as a collective action, claim, message, or decision…
The effects of opportunities on insurgencies
There are several overlooked aspects of the 1987 Palestinian intifadah. This article focuses on its specific time context and offers an alternative theoretical framework for explaining it: the political process model. This model addresses the when question of social movements, and specifically, why it was that the Palestinian public participated at such an unprecedented level during the period of the intifadah. Comparison is made with collective …
Contextualizing Political Terrorism
An attempt is made to embed the study of political terrorism within the larger phenomenon of Collective Action. It is suggested that the analysis of dynamics within and between components of Collective Action—structure of conflict, a social movement, authorities, and contention—can be beneficial for gaining additional insights into the study of group risk for political terrorism. Using the case of the Tanzim contention with Israeli forces it is d…
Knowing Your Adversary
Constructing Political Opportunity
This article challenges the portrayal of the 1987 Palestinian Intifada as a spontaneous, sudden outburst of contention. Drawing on content analysis data obtained from several Palestinian print news media sources (N=84), it is suggested that a Palestinian shared perception regarding ripe conditions to rebel was constructed throughout 1987. The findings indicate that throughout 1987 there was (a) a significant gradual increase in calls for action a…
Israeli Politics and the First Palestinian Intifada
As the Palestinian/Israeli conflict continues to be of major importance in the Middle East, this book employs a new agency approach to understanding the conflict, examining the unprecedented challenge mounted by Palestinian insurgents to Israeli military rule in the West Bank and Gaza between 1987 and 1992. In particular the book discusses how the Palestinians learned about their occupier and how knowledge of Israeli political divisions were used…
Discursive Contention
The framing process of political opportunity to act contentiously is examined as a unique type of interaction between news media and social movements, where media institutions act as a forum for reflecting and constructing oppositional views to unfolding political processes. The case of Palestinian contention during the run-up to the “first” Intifada is employed to illustrate the role of “mobilized print media” in framing of opportunity to act co…
The Dialectic of Opportunities and Threats and Temporality of Contention
Analysis of Palestinian contention in the years leading to the first Intifada illustrates how state action aimed at demobilizing challengers can have the opposite effect. The Palestinian construction of a shared perception of opportunities and threats (a process best thought of as a meaning-laden dialectic of opportunities and threats) can explain this inverse relation between repression and contention. Content analysis of the Palestinian print m…
The Israeli Political Arena and Palestinian Contention
Are changes in political conditions objective features of the world or are they ultimately what social movement activists and adherents make of them? The position taken in this article argues that shifts in the Israeli structure of political opportunity, manifested in a series of transformative events, were framed by the Palestinians within the occupied territories as a political opportunity affecting their strategy of contention during the run u…
News Media and Peace Building in Asymmetrical Conflicts
This study explores the role of the news media in asymmetrical conflicts after countries have signed a peace agreement. While most research has focused on the inherently negative role the press plays in attempts to bring peace, this study attempts to look at this issue using a more dynamic perspective. The theoretical argument focuses on how political factors affect the quantity and quality of the news flow and some of the ways in which leaders c…
Mobilizing Under the Gun
Although episodes of contentious politics in undemocratic regimes constitute the lion's share of contentious political events worldwide, the theorizing of political opportunity structures is based largely on contentious episodes in democratic/liberal political settings. This anomaly hampers recent attempts to redefine the boundaries among episodes of contention across time and place. Employing the case of the first Palestinian Intifada (1987-1992…
Seasons of Change
The events that began in Tunisia with Mohamed Bouazizi’s dramatic suicide in December of 2010 and continue to develop throughout the Middle East challenge our politics and our political imaginations. The challenges to social science theories of movements, revolutions and social change are likely less pressing than those to contemporary politics, but they are the ones that we are better prepared to engage. The wave of political contention in the M…
Relational dynamics in factional adoption of terrorist tactics
Primary Frameworks, Keying and the Dynamics of Contentious Politics
Expanding on McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly's approach to the study of contentious episodes, we develop a conceptual framework to analyze front-stage politics in the light of back-stage cultural and interpretative processes, drawing upon the Chechen and the Palestinian national movements. We elaborate on Goffman's original notion of ‘primary frameworks’ to capture the influence of fundamental cultural templates, and his concept of ‘keying processes’ to…
Relational Dynamics and Processes of Radicalization
We propose an explanatory framework for the comparative study of radicalization that focuses on its "how" and "when" questions. We build on the relational tradition in the study of social movements and contentious politics by expanding on a mechanism-process research strategy. Attentive to similarities as well as to dissimilarities, our comparative framework traces processes of radicalization by delineating four key arenas of interaction—between …
Structure of Political Opportunities and Threats, and Movement-Countermovement Interaction in Segmented Composite Regimes
Occupy Israel
In between the Arab Spring and the US Occupy movement, Israel has had its share in demonstrating the people's power against unjust authority in general and socioeconomic wrongs in particular. This paper analyzes the context, rapid growth and yet swift abatement of the Israeli protest-tent summer of 2011. I argue that the reasons for the shortly lived Israeli protest summer related more to difficulties in coping with intra-movement challenges, fra…
Response to Aran and Hassner's “Religious Violence in Judaism
Additional informationNotes on contributorsEitan Y. AlimiEitan Y. Alimi is a senior lecturer in the Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University
A Methodology Analyzing for Frame Dynamics
This article develops a methodological approach that draws on Goffman's original framing concepts of "primary frameworks," "keying processes," and "frame rims" to capture the influence of fundamental cultural templates in framing dynamics, and how framing develops sequentially among different SMOs in the dynamics of political contention. We propose that frames can be analyzed in terms of three fundamental components: collective identity (the subj…
The Dynamics of Radicalization
Why is it that some social movements engaged in contentious politics experience radicalization whereas others do not? The Dynamics of Radicalization offers an innovative reply by investigating how and when social movement organizations switch from a nonviolent mode of contention to a violent one. Moving beyond existing explanations that posit aggressive motivations, grievances or violence-prone ideologies, this book demonstrates how these factors…
Popular Contention, Regime, and Transition
This book puts the recent Arab revolts in comparative global perspective, as a means to a larger end: to flesh out similarities and to draw parallels between democratic and authoritarian-like regimes. It is based on the notion that while contention in authoritarian settings is different from that in liberal democratic ones, it is not different in kind. Consciously avoiding a teleological-like normative approach and while respecting and being mind…
The Relational Context of Radicalization
Why is it that social movements engaged in contention sometimes experience radicalization of member factions? This article argues that relational practices of contacts, ties, exchange of information and bargaining among the contending parties mediate the influence of violence-prone ideologies as well as impulses, incentives and motives for aggression on actual engagement in political violence. A mechanism-based comparison of two similar yet diffe…
Relational Radicalization
Struggling to Remain Relevant”
The role of cognitive mechanisms in processes of radicalization cannot be overestimated. However, focusing solely on violence-prone values and ideologies without examining how they gain and lose consequentiality in the context of relational dynamics, hampers our understanding of the shift from support for, to actual engagement in political violence. Using a case of nonradicalization-the predominantly nonviolent struggle of Jewish settlers against…
Focusing on Focusing Events
Despite the prevalent assumption among scholars of social movements and contentious politics that transformative contentious events are also the focus of public attention and discussion, there has been little attempt to substantiate this. After making a case for why to focus on focusing events and suggesting that these events should be thought of as products of a dialogical contentious meaning‐making process, we develop a coverage attribute‐based…
Making sense of ‘Price Tag’ violence
Writings on the fringe Jewish settler grassroots network known as the Hilltop Youth have proliferated in recent years, following the increase in violent activism associated with the network. But knowledge on this violent activism, called Price Tag, has remained conflicting and problematic. Central questions persist: What is the meaning of Price Tag violence? What explains the increase in the rate and salience of Price Tag violence? What are the s…
Political science (29 works) · Law (27 works) · Politics (27 works) · Sociology (27 works) · Political Conflict and Governance (21 works) · Law (19 works) · Political economy (17 works) · Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence (17 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (15 works) · Computer Science (12 works)