Frontiers and Ghettos: State Violence in Serbia and Israel (review)

What restrains coercive state actions by a dominant group against an unwanted, rebellious subordinate? In particular, why does a state use different methods and degrees of coercion? In a topical and fascinating research, Ron argues a novel hypothesis based on a ghetto/frontier distinction and rejects three competing explanations on the strength of paired comparisons within Serbia, within Israel, and Israel to Serbia of state responses to opposition and insurgency. The dependent variable is the dichotomy of ethnic cleansing, "the forcible removal of unwanted populations through violence and terror," and ethnic policing, which includes "corporal punishment, mass incarceration and administrative harassment, but [leaves] the unwanted population in place." The pivotal explanatory concept is the ghetto/frontier distinction, "the extent to which a state controls these areas and feels a bureaucratic, moral and political sense of responsibility for their fate." In the ghetto the state has unrivaled control and is bound to some extent by legal and moral obligations to its inhabitants, i.e., it is answerable to both domestic critics and international actors (other states, treaties and conventions, NGOs). In the frontier, at the periphery of the state's core, it has less control and much weaker responsibilities. Thus Israeli repression of Intifada One (1987-92) in the West Bank and Gaza ghettos was far milder and less destructive of life and property than the 1982 war on the South Lebanon "frontier," just as Serbia engaged in ethnic policing against non-Serb minorities within Serbia but ethnic cleansing in the Bosnian frontier of 1992-93 and switched from policing to cleansing in Kosovo when Kosovar insurgency and international intervention changed the province from ghetto to frontier.

The rival hypotheses, briefly considered and rejected, are regime type (Israel, a democracy, and Serbia, an autocracy, responded to ghetto and frontier in similar fashion), cultural nationalism (a constant cannot explain variable state repertoires), and objective threat (insurgency in the ghetto is more threatening to the state than on the frontier, yet ghetto punishment is milder). Ron has a gift for weaving military, political, and diplomatic analysis into a compelling narrative. He comes up with fascinating details that make the footnotes as pleasurable to read as the main text. In particular, the story of how the West Bank and Gaza became labor-exporting ghettos, ethnic policing of Palestinians ("a mixture of restraint and brutality"), and of the PLO's emergence as an internationally state-seeking body is a little masterpiece, a book within a book.

Engaging and promising as the ghetto/frontier hypothesis is, the argument and evidence in support has some weaknesses. The ethnic policing versus cleansing distinction is too crude for a legal and normative evaluation of state actions against opponents. The Israeli "policing" response to protesters in Intifada One (1987-91) was 750 Palestinians killed (mostly civilians), 13,000 wounded, 350 homes demolished, and thousands arrested and detained, whereas Serb "policing" against protests, general strikes, and noncooperation with the authorities in Kosovo for a decade before the KLA armed insurgency was hundreds killed and wounded, mass arrests and imprisonment, state of emergency, and military occupation.

The frontier concept is applied in an inconsistent manner. I question the Lebanon "frontier" and Bosnia "frontier" comparison. In the spring of 1992, there did not exist any threat from the Muslims in Bosnia to the Serbs in either Serbia or Bosnia itself. The Muslims/Bosniaks had no army and few weapons; the Serbs everywhere were heavily armed. Serbs were aggressors against mostly defenseless Muslims. In South Lebanon, Palestinian paramilitaries killed Israeli civilians in cross-border military actions, were heavily armed, and resisted Israeli counter insurgency by taking cover among reluctant civilians. Ron argues that western recognition of Bosnia as an independent state changed Bosnia to a frontier, which exaggerates the impact of external powers on the Yugoslav conflict. General Spegelj got it right when he maintained that however much the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany may have been involved in everything, they still...