Doing activism like a state: Progressive municipal government, Israel/Palestine and BDS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Doing activism like a state

T2 - Progressive municipal government, Israel/Palestine and BDS

AU - Cooper, Davina

AU - Herman, Didi

N1 - Davina Cooper is a research professor in Law and Political Theory at King’s College London in the Dickson Poon School of Law. She is the author of several books, including Everyday Utopias: The Conceptual Life of Promising Spaces (Duke, 2014), and Feeling like a State: Desire, Denial, and the Recasting of Authority (Duke, 2019). In an earlier life she was a London councillor, and discusses the challenges of this experience and radical 80s municipal activism in her first book, Sexing the City (Rivers Oram, 1994). Didi Herman is a professor of Law and Social Change at University of Kent Law School. She has written extensively on Jewish-related topics, including her book, An Unfortunate Coincidence: Jews, Jewishness and English Law (OUP, 2011). Her other books tackle the Christian Right and lesbian and gay legal activism, including The Antigay Agenda: Orthodox Vision and the Christian Right (Chicago, 1997), and Rights of Passage: Struggles for Lesbian and Gay Legal Equality (University of Toronto, 1994).

PY - 2020/2/1

Y1 - 2020/2/1

N2 - Activism is typically placed in opposition to state practice. Yet, state bodies often participate in campaigns and movements for change, drawing on different powers and capacities, including the ability to withhold goods, land and contracts. This article explores subnational state activism – what it means and the activist framework it offers – through a study of UK local government’s episodic participation in the pro-Palestinian movement for divestment and boycott of Israel. Municipal participation in this movement demonstrates certain tensions and challenges for subnational state activism, in conditions of conflict, where critics denounce local government for over-reaching and acting improperly. This article focuses on two key aspects: the relationship of municipal activism to de-subordination and the troubling of state hierarchy; and the place of responsibility, care and democratic embeddedness within municipal state practice. Together, these strands contribute to wider debates about progressive statehood and paradigms of institutional activism.

AB - Activism is typically placed in opposition to state practice. Yet, state bodies often participate in campaigns and movements for change, drawing on different powers and capacities, including the ability to withhold goods, land and contracts. This article explores subnational state activism – what it means and the activist framework it offers – through a study of UK local government’s episodic participation in the pro-Palestinian movement for divestment and boycott of Israel. Municipal participation in this movement demonstrates certain tensions and challenges for subnational state activism, in conditions of conflict, where critics denounce local government for over-reaching and acting improperly. This article focuses on two key aspects: the relationship of municipal activism to de-subordination and the troubling of state hierarchy; and the place of responsibility, care and democratic embeddedness within municipal state practice. Together, these strands contribute to wider debates about progressive statehood and paradigms of institutional activism.

KW - BDS

KW - boycotts

KW - local government

KW - municipal activism

KW - Radical politics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85067894606&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/2399654419851187

DO - 10.1177/2399654419851187

M3 - Article

SN - 2399-6544

VL - 38

SP - 40

EP - 59

JO - Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

JF - Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

IS - 1

ER -