Rising authoritarianism, increased polarization, and the demobilization of a previously mobilized society are defining features of post-Oslo Palestine. Dana El Kurd’s book Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine addresses these developments and asks, “What demobilizes a once-mobilized society; and how does international involvement amplify or suppress these dynamics?” (p. 4). The book provocatively posits that when Israel controlled the Palestinian territories directly, it did not succeed in creating the degree of polarization and demobilization that characterizes Palestinian society today.
El Kurd argues that international involvement, represented mainly by the involvement of the United States, has led the Palestinian governing body, the Palestinian Authority (PA), to become more authoritarian. US involvement has influenced how the PA functions, as well as its relationship to society, and in turn, this autocratizing involvement has polarized society and led to its demobilization. The book focuses on the United States’ involvement because of the particularly important role it plays in Palestinian politics (p. 33).
Through a mixed-methods approach, El Kurd illustrates how the United States’ involvement has created divergence or increased polarization in Palestinian society between those who are part of the PA elite and/or support the PA and do not support democracy, and the public more broadly, especially those segments who oppose the PA but support democracy and accountability. Because of the United States’ support for Palestine’s political elite, this elite has become insulated from the public it is supposed to represent, and therefore less constrained in its embrace of authoritarianism. The study defines political elites as those working in the PA bureaucracy with some level of decision-making power over policy and thus are directly influenced by different forms of international involvement (p. 46).
Because of this polarization, there is a decline in social cohesion that constrains effective mobilization in Palestinian society. The degree and form of polarization evidenced in Palestine today can be linked to the type of international involvement in the Palestinian case (p. 43). As the author explains, “This increased polarization is in fact linked to retrenched authoritarianism: authoritarian practices generate polarization, which in turn inhibits social cohesion” (p. 69). As a result, Palestinian society has become unable to mount successful opposition either to the unpopular PA or to the occupation (p. 68). El Kurd generalizes her findings beyond the Palestinian case to a broader discussion of authoritarian practices, illustrating how externally backed repression demobilizes societies by strengthening authoritarianism, and breeding polarization and a lack of social cohesion (p. 123). The book concludes with a discussion of these dynamics in Iraqi Kurdistan and in Bahrain.
One of the greatest strengths of this book is its superb, sophisticated methods and its novel empirical evidence. To analyze how international involvement generated polarized public opinion around preferences for democracy and accountability, El Kurd used experimental methods and original, two-level data on Palestinian elites and the Palestinian public. She conducted 35 open-ended interviews with members of the PA’s political elite—individuals associated with the Ministry of Interior, the police force, and the PLO executive committee. At the public level, she conducted a nationally representative survey of 1,270 individuals across the Palestinian territories. She also included an experimental component pertaining to international involvement. To assess the impact of authoritarian practices on polarization and social cohesion, El Kurd used a lab-in-field experiment, case-study analysis, and interview analysis with 67 students at Birzeit University. Lastly, she assessed the independent impact of the PA on mobilization by examining patterns of mobilization drawing on a dataset she created that covers types of mobilization, the date on which it occurred, and the location, and she examined this data over different time periods. This portion of the research was built on an impressive dataset of mobilization incidents she compiled from the Institute of Palestine Studies Chronologies, UN OCHA “Protection of Civilians” weekly reports, and Shabakat al-Quds al-Akhbariya (a Palestinian news network).
Despite these strengths, the arguments developed in this study could have benefited from more nuance and greater contextualization. In particular, the book’s focus on how the PA’s authoritarianism, supported by the United States, has polarized and demobilized Palestinian society requires a more detailed discussion about how the terms of the 1993 Oslo Accords engendered the birth of the PA, and from the onset constrained its development as a national governing body. The PA and its authoritarianism did not emerge in a political vacuum, but were shaped by the terms of this political settlement. Moreover, the study could have paid greater attention to the divisions among the PA’s opposition. As the book’s research shows, the existing polarization is not only between the PA and its opposition, but there also exist significant divisions among the opposition, especially pertaining to their relationship to the PA. These divisions are not simply a byproduct of PA authoritarianism.
The working definition of international involvement in the study is quite broad. It includes pressure both in the form of material incentives and direct involvement in decision-making, or as the author explains, “This encompasses a broad range of state behavior: in the case of Palestine, it includes the strategic use of aid and diplomatic pressure on the part of the United States and its allies” (p. 46). It is important to disaggregate this aid, because although most of it is intended to bolster the post-Oslo political order, there are significant differences among security assistance, budgetary support, humanitarian assistance, and democracy and governance assistance, all of which have affected the PA and Palestinian society through different mechanisms and in different ways.
The book’s argument that the lack of mobilization in Areas A, or areas controlled by the PA, is attributed to the PA’s authoritarianism is also not entirely convincing. Post-Oslo patterns of Palestinian mobilization are also shaped by the location of the redeployed Israeli military and the areas where Israel regularly confiscates Palestinian lands; more discussion of this would have been helpful. Lastly, the study could have benefited from greater engagement with more of the extant literature, both in Arabic and English, that has addressed foreign aid in Palestine.
Despite these issues, I highly recommend this book. It represents an important and timely contribution to the literature, especially related to external actors and the development and buttressing of authoritarianism, and to Palestine studies. The data in Polarized and Demobilized are novel, and the empirical research is rigorous and illuminating. El Kurd makes an important contribution to the subject matter. The book is bound to generate important discussions on these topics.
