This set of papers deals with social and political trends that create gaps between Israeli citizens and practices with which various groups attempt to contend with these gaps. The book focuses mainly on the nation-state’s mechanisms of exclusion and on groups that are prevented from belonging or are shunted to its political, economic, and cultural margins. Nevertheless, it does not ignore the role of mechanisms that make possible the inclusion of individuals and groups in the society, because the nation-state’s mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion are but two sides of the same coin.

The analysis of these complex mechanisms is carried out in light of the broad, worldwide discussion of the topic, as reflected in the relevant literature, and through an examination of the political, economic, cultural, and intellectual developments that characterize the global era. The papers in the book attempt to examine, inter alia, how the accelerated flow of capital, goods, information, and people—which processes of globalization entail—creates a growing disparity between the political and legal framework that defines civil rights, that is, the nation-state, and the complex sociological reality that encourages deep structural inequality in the way in which those rights are allocated.