ABSTRACT

Many members of minority groups clash violently with state agents. The case of West Bank rightwing activists is particularly paradoxical. Unlike disempowered groups whose ability to bring about change is limited, these activists constitute a powerful sociopolitical force, and the security forces with which they clash also protect them in the territories to which they claim sovereignty. Based on 20 interviews with rightwing protest activists, this article explores what interpretation activists give to their part in violent clashes. The article offers two main contributions. First, it proposes the concept of perceived state legitimacy as a theoretical construct for evaluating the degree to which citizens view their state as legitimate. Unlike previous studies that define legitimacy as a unidimensional construct, perceived state legitimacy is defined here as made up of five different components: identification, trust, distributive justice, procedural justice, and legality. Second, the article shows empirically that violent clashes can indicate undermining distinct components of state legitimacy. Thus, West Bank rightwing activists who took part in violent clashes with state agents undermine the state’s legitimacy components of trust, distributive justice, procedural justice, and legality – but not identification.

摘要

许多少数族裔成员与政府人员发生激烈冲突。西岸右翼激进分子的情况尤其自相矛盾。与被赋予权力的变革能力有限的弱势群体不同，这些激进分子构成了强大的社会政治力量，与之抗衡的安全部队也在他们声称拥有主权的领土上保护着他们。在对右翼抗议活动家进行20次采访的基础上，本文探讨了解释家活动家在暴力冲突中的作用。本文提供了两个主要贡献。首先，它提出了感知国家合法性的概念作为评估公民将自己的国家合法的程度的理论结构。与先前将合法性定义为一维结构的研究不同，此处将感知到的国家合法性定义为五个不同的组成部分：识别，信任，分配正义，程序正义和合法性。其次，该文章从经验上表明，暴力冲突可能表明破坏了国家合法性的不同组成部分。因此，参加与国家人员的暴力冲突的西岸右翼激进分子破坏了该州在信任，分配正义，程序正义和合法性上的合法性组成部分，但没有破坏身份。