The ongoing questions that ethno-nationally divided urban communities face concerning human rights are often exacerbated by large-scale events that challenge everyday local dynamics, such as wars and pandemics. This study, situated within discussions concerning the "localization" of human rights, explores what factors lead city-zens (citizens of the city) to pin expectations of safeguarding human rights on the local authority, focusing on urban identity, ethno-national identity, and the city's ethno-national heterogeneity. We explore Israel's homogeneous and mixed (Jewish-Palestinian) cities, wherein city-zens navigate their conflicting identities amidst eruptions of the long-standing conflict, as demonstrated by its latest escalation in October 2023. Drawing on an original survey and in-depth interviews, we find that urban identity is associated with city-zens' expectations that their city will safeguard human rights, particularly among the (Jewish) majority in mixed cities. We further divide urban identity into legal and social dimensions, elucidating its role in shaping local perspectives on human rights in ethno-nationally conflicted societies. 

This study explores the prioritization of urban identity over national identity in the context of the global city. Scholars have extensively discussed the fragmentation of national identity among individuals in the globalized world, and the relative proliferation of other communal identities, whether more cosmopolitan or place-based. As globalization gradually erodes the cultural distinctiveness of nation states, cities are revealed as arenas within which inhabitants nurture a particular collective character, which is used as an attractive source of local, communal belonging. Global cities, in particular, are a compelling case to inquire into the interplay between national and urban identity. Due to their relative independence vis-à-vis the state, the global city can promote the values shared by inhabitants while constituting significant competition for nation-based self-determination and providing a unique source of urban identity that is simultaneously cosmopolitan and place-based.

In this paper we ask whether city-zens living in highly globalized cities are more likely to prioritize their urban identity over their national identity. Utilizing the GaWC Index of cities’ globalization levels, we analyze the results of an original survey conducted among residents of six European cities: Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Utrecht and Glasgow. Our empirical evidence supports the hypothesis that in globalized cities a higher level of globalism accords with a more explicit tendency to prioritize urban identity over national identity. In conclusion, we interpret this evidence as an identities trade-off that challenges the coexistence of urban and national identities within globalized cities, discussing its implications for future studies of contemporary politics.

This study examines the impact of spontaneous interactions between Jewish and Palestinian students in a divided city, focusing on how these interactions influence attitudes, feelings, and perceptions. Drawing on the contact hypothesis and third-place theory, which posit that interactions in neutral spaces can reduce prejudice, we contribute to ongoing debates surrounding these theories. Our research incorporates critical perspectives, acknowledging the potential for depoliticization of space and conflict suppression in settler-colonial and divided cities. Using an online survey administered to 1,951 university students, we found that Jewish and Palestinian students who engage in spontaneous interactions with the other group during their studies exhibit more positive attitudes towards them. These findings highlight the importance of re-evaluating the concept of third places in divided cities, particularly in contexts marked by conflict and asymmetry. We conclude by offering practical recommendations based on our results.

Disadvantaged residents in contested cities often mistrust and resist official authorities due to historical deprivation. However, their urgent needs compel them to approach municipal bodies, both formally and informally, exhibiting "flexible compliance." Through interviews with Palestinians and a public opinion survey in Jerusalem, we analyzed the preferences of Jewish- Israeli and Palestinian residents for public goods provision. Results indicate that Palestinian residents prefer unofficial institutions, but this varies by location. Inner-city and outer-city East Jerusalem residents prefer the municipal government, while those beyond the separation wall favor the community councils. We elucidate flexible compliance and propose municipal tools to address it.

How is the electoral behavior of minorities shaped by past violence? Recent studies found that displacement increases hostility between perpetrators and displaced individuals, but there has been paltry research on members of surviving communities. We argue that the latter exhibit the opposite pattern because of their different condition. Violence will cause cross-generational vulnerability, fear and risk-aversion— leading the surviving communities to seek protection and avoid conflict by signalling loyalty and rejecting nationalist movements. In their situation as an excluded minority in the perpetrators’ state, they will be more likely to vote for out-group parties. Exploiting exogenous battlefield dynamics that created inter-regional variation in the Palestinian exodus (1947-1949), microlevel measurements that capture the damage of violence, and an original longitudinal data set, we show that Palestinian villages in Israel more severely impacted by the 1948 war have a much higher vote share to Jewish parties even seventy years later. Survey evidence further supports our theory, revealing that this pattern exists only for members of the surviving communities, and not among displaced individuals. The findings shed new light on the complex social relations that guide political decision-making in post-war settings and divided societies that suffer from protracted conflicts.

How does living on property taken from others affect voting behavior? Recent studies argued that benefiting from historical violence leads to support for the far right. We extend this literature with new theoretical insights and data from Israel, using case-specific variation in the nature of displacement to uncover heterogeneous treatment effects. Exploiting the coercion during the settlement of Jewish migrants on rural lands following the 1948 war, we show that living on lands taken from Palestinians consistently led to hawkish right-wing voting in the following 70 years. We also show that exposure to the ruins of the displaced villages increased right-wing voting and that the impact of intergroup contact is divergent: it decreased intolerant voting in most villages but increased it among Jewish communities that reside on violently taken land. Our results are robust when matching is used to account for several controls and spatiotemporal dependencies.

Do the leaders of minority communities in divided cities influence group members’ expressed willingness to engage politically with rival groups? Studies typically  link group members' willingness to engage with rival groups to direct contact between individuals from opposing groups. However, such contact is problematic in divided cities, wherein opportunities to interact are scarce and frowned upon. Focusing on the contested urban space of Jerusalem, we find indications that the diverse nature of community leadership in East Jerusalem can influence Palestinian residents’ attitudes toward political engagement with Israeli Authorities via The ‘middlemen’ role can explain the influence that have in divided cities. They their constituents and the other group's members or institutions. Our analysis employs original data from a public of East Jerusalem immediately prior to the Jerusalem 2018 It has ramifications regarding urban governance for other divided cities.

What is the impact of uncommon but notable violent acts on conflict dynamics? We analyze the impact of the murder of a Palestinian child on the broader dynamics of Israeli-Palestinian violence in Jerusalem. By using novel micro-level event data and utilizing Discrete Furrier Transform and Bayesian Poisson Change Point Analysis, we compare the impact of the murder to that of two other lethal but more typical Israeli-Palestinian events. We demonstrate that the murder had a large and durable effect that altered the broader conflict dynamics, whereas the other events caused smaller, short-term effects. We demonstrate that scholars should devote more attention to the analysis of atypical violent acts and present a set of tools for conducting such analysis.

This study explores one of the least studied components of forced migrants' journeys—the internal political conditions of the host/transit countries. Using the social navigation approach, we demonstrate how these conditions influence the progress or halt of migration journeys of asylum seekers. We interviewed asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan about their journey from their country of origin. Based on these life stories, we derived three salient political themes affecting their journeys: state political instability, the state of freedoms, and lasting persecution. We conclude with insights into the influence of the political component along the journey.

Does social cohesion explain variation in violence within divided cities? In line with insights drawn from the ethnic politics, criminology and urban geography literature we suggest that explaining variation in inter-group violence is not possible by relying on motivational elements alone, and attention to social cohesion is required as well. While cohesion can facilitate collective action that aids violent mobilization, it can also strengthen social order that contributes to the group’s capability to control and prevent unrest. We test these relationships using an application of a latent variable model to an integration of crime data, survey results and expert-coded data in order to measure cohesion in East Jerusalem neighborhoods. We then analyze its impact on riots using three original geo-located datasets recording violence in the neighborhoods between the years 2013-2015. Our results reveal that even with controls for economic and political determinants of violence, as well as for spatial clustering and temporal explanations, neighborhood-level social cohesion is a robust explanatory variable - it negatively correlates with riots.

This special issue of "Politika: The Israeli Journal of Political Science and International Relations" presents a comprehensive exploration of the multifaceted dynamics of Jerusalem. The articles in this collection examine Jerusalem's historical significance, cultural heritage, and the interplay between its diverse communities. They delve into the spatial dynamics of the city, including urban planning challenges, territorial contestations, and the impacts of demographic shifts. Additionally, the political dimensions of Jerusalem are analyzed, including the role of international actors, negotiations, and the implications of competing national aspirations. Through interdisciplinary lenses, these articles provide fresh insights into Jerusalem's intricate tapestry, challenging prevailing assumptions and offering new perspectives on the city's past and present. By examining Jerusalem's historical evolution and contemporary challenges, this special issue aims to enrich the understanding of this unique city and contribute to ongoing scholarly debates.

Violently contested cities are at the heart of ongoing ethnonational conflicts, and their final status is often a central issue for peace negotiations, without which no final resolution can be reached. These negotiations, typically led by national politicians and diplo- mats, include little, if any, representation of local actors and voices. These voices are often fundamentally different from those of state- centric actors, and they may bring to the table different ideas, values, and perspectives concerning the future of contested cities. This article integrates the seeing like a city theoretical approach with the growing literature on urban peacebuilding and asks: How is seeing peace like a city different from seeing peace like a state? and whether the visions of local pro-peace grassroots leaders are com- plementary or contradictory to the models that national decision- makers propose for cities. We analyse the case study of Jerusalem using historical analysis, public opinion surveys, and in-depth inter- views to illustrate the tension between state-centric and city-centric logics. Our findings show the distinction between the focus of state-centric processes on ‘rigid’ issues (e.g. security and sover- eignty) and the focus of city-centric processes on ‘soft’ issues (e.g. tolerance and daily life). We conclude the paper with an explication of the implications of our framework, seeing peace like a city for research and practice in other violently contested societies.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of East Jerusalem Palestinian students studying at Israeli higher education institutions in Israel and in pre- academic preparatory programs. This study examines how spontaneousencounters with Jewish students while attending an Israeli academic institution are associated with young East Jerusalem Palestinian students’ attitudes toward the integration of East Jerusalem Palestinians into the city of Jerusalem and cooperation with Israeli Jews. We analyze the responses to an online survey of 106 East Jerusalem Palestinian students attending a one-year preparatory program at an Israeli academic institute. We find that Palestinian students who report spontaneous contact with Jewish students on campus during the year express more favorable attitudes toward the integration of East Jerusalem Palestinians into the city of Jerusalem and more positive attitudes toward Jewish Israelis in general.

Group leaders play a vital role in divided cities, particularly in local problem-solving and in everyday contestations. Their role as negotiators makes them perfectly positioned to promote urban processes for the group to which they belong but also raises questions regarding their loyalty. Seeking to understand these individuals’ thinking, this study asks how leaders from different groups in a divided city explain their development as leaders. Utilizing a life-story approach, we present a narrative analysis of 40 life-stories, as told by local leaders representing the main social groups in Jerusalem. Our findings suggest that leaders from different groups use distinctive narratives to ensure their relevancy: “The Homecomer,” used by Israeli-Jews; “The Middleman,” used by Palestinian-Arabs; and “The Pathfinder,” used by Israeli Ultraorthodox-Jews. More importantly, we found that all these leaders share a similar mind-set, what we call leadership development as discovery. Indeed, their development includes formative events that differentiate them from their community, helping them to see the divided city from a different perspective and positioning them as leaders. Understanding and acknowledging this spatial aspect in their narratives can be a first step in facilitating group collaborations, empowering local leaders, and even leading to the emergence of new ones. Our implications go beyond divided cities and can be further studied in ordinary cities.

Does an ongoing stalemate in a peace process affect the international agenda toward the conflict and international perceptions about policies that should be adopted to resolve it? We provide a tentative answer to this question by drawing insight from analysis of developments and trends in international media attention to key terms and concepts in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during cycles of violence, as well as periods of rapprochement and peace negotiations, in the last two and half decades (1996-2021). We find that although attention to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process have been declining over the years, much of the international discussion continues to be devoted to relaunching a negotiation process leading to a two state solution. The ongoing stalemate in such “process,” we show, provide ample opportunities for alternative approaches to emerge advocating alternative endgames (e.g. one-state), international pressure (e.g. BDS), or unilateral steps (e.g. annexation). Each of this approaches promotes an alternative vision and provides a different path, employs its own terminology and vision of the future. The Israeli-Palestinian case study helps illustrate what may happen to peace when the process is stalled, and how a stalemate can produce change in the international debate on the conflict and push for the emergence of new policy directions and agendas.

All around the world, urban spaces are disputed over issues of class, gender, ethnicity, and race. Urban citizenship within such spaces has been found to be fragmented, or even ‘dark.’ Intermediary organizations that represent spatially concentrated communities, such as Community Councils (CCs), often operate under these contentious circumstances. This paper focuses on the role of intermediary institutions in the contested city of (East) Jerusalem. We situate this case in the discussion on urban citizenship and highlight the precarity of the concept in a non-democratic context where most people are stateless residents. Building on in-depth interviews and site visits, we suggest that CCs implement a limited form of urban citizenship via a range of functions that vary from service provision to political representation. We explain the multifaceted nature of this limited urban citizenship and the process by which it is created, as well as its strengths and weaknesses. Through this case, we seek to enrich the literature on urban citizenship and CCs in contested cities with an emphasis on the multiple logics that operate in space, including the urban and the national.

This paper argues that autonomous militaries can play a balancing role during major internal political crises. However, when militaries’ autonomy is curtailed by political leaders before the crisis, militaries cannot maintain the political balance between rulers and opponents, thereby increasing the risk of armed conflict. The paper first explains the main concepts relevant to the discussion (autonomy; political crisis; balancing role), exploring their possible inter-linkages and presenting several hypotheses. Subsequently, it discusses four relevant cases from the Middle East before and during the Arab revolts of 2010–2011: Egypt in 2011 and Lebanon in 1958, which demonstrate the balancing capacities of autonomous militaries during major political crises, and Lebanon in 1975 and Syria in 2011, which reveal that non-autonomous militaries cannot play a balancing role in such circumstances. The paper concludes with several observations regarding the military’s balancing role during major internal political crises in divided and homogenous states. 

In this paper institutions are treated as stabilized sets of expectations, an approach that encourages investigation of how cultural formations, political regimes, global financial arrangements, and other institutions can be both reliable and yet also subject to sudden and sometimes catastrophic transformations. We examine conditions that make political cascades, or tipping, more or less likely. We report findings from computer-assisted agent-based modelling experiments designed to test Timur Kuran’s preference falsification model for explaining the possibility, but rare occurrence of, revolutionary political cascades. Since it run on a computer, our operationalized model of Kuran’s theory is is a necessarily precise and elaborated refinement of the incompletely specified version presented by Kuran.  Our purpose is to go beyond his explanation for why political cascades can occur, albeit rarely, to explore the conditions that make them more or less likely.  Our specific focus is on the impact of the amount of knowledge about the state of the entire system possessed by citizens with stronger or weaker inclinations to publicly express their anti-regime sentiments. The “zone of knowledge” of individuals is an unexamined variable whose importance is unrecognized but implied by Kuran’s analysis.  . We find that with some reasonable but crucial refinements Kuran’s preference falsification theory works to explain the pattern observed in the political world of rare but sweeping cascades of; that the amount of knowledge individuals have about the behavior of the population is crucial to shaping the probability of a cascade; and that variation in the myopia of “early followers” is considerably more important for determining the likelihood and comprehensiveness of sudden political transformations  than the influence of first movers or the contribution of other plausible factors.

This paper assesses how spatial configurations shape and transform individual and collective forms of urban violence, suggesting that geographies of urban violence should be understood as an issue of mobility. We document and map violent events in Jerusalem, assessing the possible impact of street patterns: segmenting populations, linking populations, and creating spaces for conflict between the city's Jewish and Palestinian populations. Using space syntax network analysis, we demonstrate that, in the case of Jerusalem, street connectivity is positively associated with individual violence yet negatively associated with collective violence. Our findings suggest that understanding the logic of urban intergroup violence requires us to pay close attention to local urban morphology and its impact on intergroup relations in ethnically divided and heterogeneous environments.

Scholarly research exploring the phenomenon of regional distinctiveness in Europe, since at least the 1960s, has generated a variety of competing theories to explain the phenomenon, including the following: the persistence of linguistic distinctiveness; the impact of economic distinctiveness; and remoteness. Often these studies operationalize “regional distinctiveness” in different ways, impeding the evaluation of different types of theories against one another. This study develops a novel measure for regional distinctiveness, applied to 161 regions in 11 European countries from 1990–2014, and demonstrates that language, economics, and remoteness work through regional parties to generate regional political distinctiveness, while only linguistic distinctiveness also has a direct effect on such distinctiveness.