AbstractsPolitical Science

PALESTINIAN STATE-BUILDING PERFORMANCE Challenges of national integration between the West Bank and Gaza Strip The peace process between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Israel established, for the first time in modern history, a Palestinian National Authority (PA) in parts of the Palestinian territory. Given the strong regional cleavages between the West Bank and Gaza, this study investigates what difficulties regional cleavages presents to national integration in the Palestinian state-building project. Using a model derived from Stein Rokkan's models of state-building, this study investigates the first phasw of system building, where the physical power apparatus is the most important sector to be built. Can a common Palestinian political entity be created out of two separate and distinct entities that differ economically, culturally, legally and administratively? Looking into the organisation and operation of the Palestinian police and security forces and the legal system, it can be found evidence that the West Bank and Gaza experience the PA's consolidation of power differently. Next: what is the extent and nature of the opposition to the state-building elite? How Arafat has gotten control over the opposition to the state-building process, namely Hamas and to some extent the civil society, building new alliances and elites, has been a part of penetrating the PA's power throughout the Palestinian territories. The last chapter identifies different regional state-building centers in the West Bank and Gaza. To sum up the discussion on the PA's state-building performance, penetrating the society very much became an issue of controlling Hamas. Further, the PA's consolidation of power was carried out differenlty between the two regions, as the institution-building for the Palestinian police was carried out.