Between the Rule of Law and States of Emergency

The Fluid Jurisprudence of the Israeli Regime

By Yoav Mehozay

Subjects: Israel Studies, Legal Studies, Conflict Resolution, Democracy, Political Theory
Paperback : 9781438463384, 220 pages, July 2017
Hardcover : 9781438463391, 220 pages, December 2016

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Table of contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

1. Introduction: The Co-Constitution of Law and Emergency

2. Israel’s Legal-Political System: A Fluid Structure

3. Fluid Emergency Legal Sources

4. Practicing Fluidity I: The Complementary Relationship between Israel’s Emergency Legal Sources

5. Practicing Fluidity II: Emergency Powers for Economic and Financial Ends

6. Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

Raises concerns about the degree to which the rule of law and emergency powers have become fundamentally entangled, using Israel as a case study.

Description

Honorable Mention, 2017 Yonathan Shapiro Award for Best Book in Israel Studies presented by the Association for Israel Studies

Contemporary debates on states of emergency have focused on whether law can regulate emergency powers, if at all. These studies base their analyses on the premise that law and emergency are at odds with each other. In Between the Rule of Law and States of Emergency, Yoav Mehozay offers a fundamentally different approach, demonstrating that law and emergency are mutually reinforcing paradigms that compensate for each other's shortcomings. Through a careful dissection of Israel's emergency apparatus, Mehozay illustrates that the reach of Israel's emergency regime goes beyond defending the state and its people against acts of terror. In fact, that apparatus has had a far greater impact on Israel's governing system, and society as a whole, than has traditionally been understood. Mehozay pushes us to think about emergency powers beyond the "war on terror" and consider the role of emergency with regard to realms such as political economy.

Yoav Mehozay is Assistant Professor of Criminology at the University of Haifa, Israel.

Reviews

"This is an important book, not only for those interested in legal and political theory, but also for scholars seeking to understand how executive power in Israel works and what this means for institutional development of Israeli politics … a must-read for scholars of contemporary law, society, and politics in Israel. " — Israel Studies Review

"This book proffers a valuable study of how Israel has used and continues to use State of Emergency (SOE) laws to override and bypass constitutional, Bill of Rights (BOR), legislative (parliamentary), and even governing bodies such as the Knesset to impose SOE rule. " — CHOICE