Book Review: Wendy Pearlman, "Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement"

My review of Wendy Pearlman's Violence, Non-Violence, and the Palestinian National Movement is out now in New Political Science, the journal of the New Political Science caucus of the American Political Science Association. (Basically, it's the caucus full of people who want political science to be more about social change, more about multiple methods coexisting and the validity of qualitative methods, and less about math.)

The review is behind a paywall, but here's my basic point:

Violence, Non-Violence, and the Palestinian National Movement provides suggestive answers to two popular questions about politics: First: when do participants in social movements choose violent tactics over nonviolent tactics? Second: Why is there no “Palestinian Gandhi” or prominent nonviolent leadership in the Palestinian national movement? By taking the first question seriously, and using the logical problems of the second as a motivating force (as she shows well, there is a long history of nonviolent activism in Palestinian movements), Pearlman has written a compelling book that combines close historical documentation with a clear argument about the relationship between the internal features of movements and their tactical choices.

If you're interested in Pearlman's work, here's a video interview with her talking about it, and here's an oldish essay by her on the Middle East Channel about the possibility of a new intifada.

If anyone wants a copy of my review, I'm happy to pass it along--hit me up by PM, or email (emilyreganwills at that ubiquitous server, gmail). And if you're thinking of getting the book, it's a good read, and available for Kindle.



(I know, I know, I never write, I never call. It's been a busy couple of months lately. Hopefully I'll have news to report in the next month or so...)