Privatization of Security in Israel, Causes and Effects
The study will investigate the process of privatization in Israel’s military and security operations and in Israel’s military industry. Israel’s policies will be analyzed in a political economy framework, through studying the decisions which were taken by the Israeli government as to which companies and operations have been privatized between 1994 and 2012, and which have not.
The research question which this study will attempt to answer is: “What social and economic factors accelerated the privatization of security in Israel in recent years?”
Despite the rapid privatization in Israel of many government-owned assets since 1985, the hypothesis is that security would be last to be privatized, because of its high priority in the political discourse and the close ties between the military and the political leadership. However, Israel’s dependency on U.S military aid and its cooperation with the U.S military industry have introduced private-sector practices commonplace in the U.S military industry into Israel, and encouraged Israeli companies to seek markets beyond the needs of the Israeli military.
Furthermore, the increasing difficulty in deploying regular troops in police-like operations of security and control of a civilian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories have given rise to a new philosophy in the Israeli military which separates “core” activities from “peripheral” activities. Over the past two decades, increasingly more military activities were classified as peripheral, and out-sourced to private companies. This process has changed not only the structure of the Israeli military but has also redirected Israel’s army and security exports into new fields, especially the “homeland security” industry.
The study will combine quantitative and qualitative methods in order to trace the trends in privatization of security in Israel, compare these trends to similar trends in the world (especially in the U.S) and to analyze them.