1,720,964 research outputs found

    The Druze Community in Israel

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    Social Identity and Voting Behavior in a Deeply Divided Society: The Case of Israel

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    This paper examines what best explains political behavior in a deeply divided society. Despite the democratic nature of the Israeli political system, we suggest that Israel’s society is characterized by social affiliations mainly defined by social identity that include race, ethnicity, and religion and amount to tribalism. Based on the results of the 2020 election, we examined whether these social affiliations or other socioeconomic characteristics better explain voting behavior. First, we found a significant correlation between tribalism and voting behavior in Israel and socioeconomic characteristics and voting behavior in Israel. When comparing tribalism’s correlation versus other socioeconomic characteristics, we found that the correlation between tribalism and voting behavior in Israel trumps the correlation between socioeconomic characteristics and voting behavior in Israel, except for the Ashkenazi Jews. In other words, voting behavior is better explained by affiliation to the social group, that is, by kinship, race, ethnicity, and religion, than by other socioeconomic characteristics such as education level, economic status, or geographic location. This extends the idea of “in-group favoritism”

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Predicting the Vote in Kinship-Based Municipal Elections: The Case of Arab Cities in Israel

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    This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs on 15 Feb 2018, available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13602004.2018.1432149.This paper examines the feasibility of using pre-election polls in kinship-based municipal elections in Israel, and the methods needed to increase the accuracy of predicting the results. The research focuses on the Arab society in Israel, which is an ethnic minority within a nation-state and a traditional society and that its municipal elections are characterized as kinship-based elections. The results of municipal elections in four Arab cities and towns show that pre-election polls succeeded in predicting the elections’ outcome with high accuracy. This research suggests the use of “Clan Sampling” in which the sampling is according to the sub-tribal societal structure—and further suggests applying the “Cross-Section” treatment for the undecided. Separately applying one of the two treatments gave a high level of accuracy; the accuracy further increased when applying the two methods together. By adjusting the methods used, pre-election polls were found to be accurate in predicting the vote in elections within a traditional Arab society

    The Role of Military Service in the Integration/Segregation of Muslims, Christians and Druze within Israel

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    This study applies the negative peace/positive peace approach to internal nation-state relations between the majority and ethnic minority. This approach focuses on the policies implemented by the state. In order to understand the social system from its formation, an important focus should be given to the period of establishment of a new state, whereas physical borders are defined along with the borders of society, which determines who is included in the new nation and who is excluded. The conclusions are based on the case of the Israeli Druze, an ethnic minority with whom the state of Israel and its Jewish majority have achieved positive peace. This study suggests that the positive peace with the Druze was achieved following their integration in the army—as a decision of the state of Israel—that lead to their integration in the Israeli society. Conversely to the Israeli Muslims, where a negative peace is maintained, following the early year’s state policy to exclude them

    The 2016 US Presidential Elections: What Went Wrong in Pre-Election Polls? Demographics Help to Explain

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    This study examined the accuracy of the various forecasting methods of the 2016 US Presidential Elections. The findings revealed a high accuracy in predicting the popular vote. However, this is most suitable in an electoral system which is not divided into constituencies. Instead, due to the Electoral College method used in the US elections, forecasting should focus on predicting the winner in every state separately. Nevertheless, miss-predicted results in only a few states led to false forecasting of the elected president in 2016. The current methods proved less accurate in predicting the vote in states that are less urbanized and with less diverse society regarding race, ethnicity, and religion. The most challenging was predicting the vote of people who are White, Protestant Christians, and highly religious. In order to improve pre-election polls, this study suggests a few changes to the current methods, mainly to adopt the “Cleavage Sampling” method that can better predict the expected turnout of specific social groups, thus leading to higher accuracy of pre-election polling

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Bigger but not always better: Size and democracy in Israeli amalgamated local governments

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    This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Urban Affairs on 17 Jan 2017, available at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/07352166.2016.1262701.This study discusses the amalgamation of local governments as a method of creating larger and more effective local governments that place fewer burdens on central government budgets. Beyond economies of scale, our findings from a case study of Israel’s 2003 amalgamation plan support the democracy claim. This study reveals that amalgamation reduces local democracy in terms of voter turnout and representation. The likelihood of having a greater level of local democracy increases in smaller local governments, in terms of population. The new efficiency and democracy approach suggests that a new amalgamated local government must be sufficiently small to maximize local democracy. At the same time, new amalgamated local governments need to be sufficiently large to maximize economies of scale. This study uses field research with in-depth interviews to enhance the findings of the empirical analysis
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