yael zeira headshot

E: YZEIRA@SYR.EDU
T: 315-443-1749

Department of Political Science
Maxwell School of Citizenship
and Public Affairs
400F Eggers Hall
Syracuse, NY 13244

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Books
Articles
Teaching

Yael Zeira

Associate Professor
of Political Science,
Syracuse University

I am an Associate Professor of Political Science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and Director of its Middle Eastern Studies Program. In addition, I codirect the International and Intrastate Conflict Cluster in PARCC.

My research examines political conflict, ethnic politics, and ethnic violence, with a regional focus on the Middle East. In particular, I study the formation and evolution of political attitudes, group identities, and political behavior amid conflict and repression.

My first book, The Revolution Within: State Institutions and Unarmed Resistance in Palestine (Cambridge University Press) draws on extensive fieldwork in the Occupied Palestinian Territories to investigate how unarmed resistance against repressive regimes emerges in the absence of strong, autonomous civil society organizations and why individuals participate in its early stages, even without organizational support.

My current book project, co-authored with Alexandra Siegel, investigates how and why some civil conflicts become ethnicized and how such processes of ethnicization can be resisted or reversed. Using a new conceptual and methodological framework to measure ethnicization, the project analyzes variation in the salience of ethnic identity within and across contemporary conflicts in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and Ukraine. It is supported by a two-year Distinguished Scholar Award from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

My articles have appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Comparative Political Studies, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, and the Journal of Peace Research. I regularly teach courses on comparative politics, political conflict and violence, social movements, and Middle East politics.

A black analog clock showing 4:00 with a downward-pointing arrow.
Book cover of "The Revolution Within" by Yael Zeira, featuring a colorful illustration of a person holding a phone with a landscape background and a small village.

The Revolution Within: State Institutions and Unarmed Resistance in Palestine

Despite having strong anti-regime sentiment, Palestinians initially lacked the internal organizational strength often seen as necessary for protest. This book provides a foundation for understanding participation and mobilization under these difficult conditions. It argues that, under these conditions, integration into state institutions – schools, prisons and courts – paradoxically makes individuals more likely to resist the state. Diverse evidence drawn from field research – including the first large-scale survey of participants and non-participants in Palestinian resistance, Arabic-language interviews, and archival sources – supports the argument. The book’s findings explain how anti-regime resistance can occur even without the strong civil society organizations typically seen as necessary for protest and, thus, suggest new avenues for supporting civil resistance movements.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Anti-regime movements require mass participation to succeed. Yet, even in successful campaigns, most individuals do not participate. Why do some individuals participate in risky anti-regime resistance while others abstain? Under which conditions will anti-regime movements achieve broad participation? The Revolution Within answers these questions through an in-depth study of participation in unarmed resistance against Israeli rule in the Palestinian Territories over more than a decade.

  • This book provides a foundation for understanding participation and mobilization under these difficult conditions. It argues that, under these conditions, integration into state institutions – schools, prisons and courts – paradoxically makes individuals more likely to resist the state. Diverse evidence drawn from field research – including the first large-scale survey of participants and non-participants in Palestinian resistance, Arabic-language interviews, and archival sources – supports the argument. The book’s findings explain how anti-regime resistance can occur even without the strong civil society organizations typically seen as necessary for protest and, thus, suggest new avenues for supporting civil resistance movements.

Purchase on Amazon

The book is available in hardcover, paperback, and e-book from
Amazon and Cambridge University Press. You can also find the
introduction here.

Reviews

  • “The Revolution Within offers a powerful new argument to explain why some individuals participate in unarmed resistance, while other remain on the sidelines. With evidence from Palestine, Yael Zeira shows that integration into state-controlled mass institutions, such as the education system and the prison system, provides individuals with greater access to information about tactics and potential participants, which mitigates uncertainty about the risk of resistance activities and leads to more individuals participating. This book is a must read for scholars and students of nonviolence and unarmed resistance.”

    Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham - University of Maryland

  • “The Revolution Within presents fascinating new insights into how and why Palestinians mobilized against Israeli occupation. Yael Zeira’s unique, carefully designed survey research and rigorous analysis reveals the unanticipated ways in which schools, prisons and other civil society networks served as key facilitators for the organization of collective action. This important book not only provides a deeper understanding of Palestinian political organization, but also provides important comparative insights into the underlying mechanisms of collective action.”

    Marc Lynch - George Washington University

  • “Yael Zeira’s probing new study asks a critical question: how does anti-government opposition emerge in authoritarian societies which lack the kind of deep civil society groups that often form the backbone of protest movements? Her answer: state institutions themselves can serve as the site of pro-reform organization. This brilliant insight helps explain critical historical events, from the rise of the Anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa and the rise of the Arab Spring in Egypt.”

    Jacob Shapiro - Princeton University

  • “An insightful, novel analysis … The Revolution Within shows how Palestinians created networks of resistance from within state-controlled schools and prisons. While prior scholarship has stressed that strong civil societies produce successful social movements, this study argues that state institutions themselves can be appropriated and used to facilitate sustained non-violent protest. Through field work and original survey data, this meticulously well-researched and engaging study provides a compelling account of how a nationwide protest movement began.”

    Adria Lawrence - Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore

  • “Zeira supports her innovative argument with never-before-collected survey data that is simply breathtaking in its ingenuity. Her representative sample of 650 Palestinian West Bank males in the target age bracket is the most innovative data collection effort I have seen in that region. Although many researchers have studied Palestinian rebellion during the first intifada, none has used her comprehensive, careful, sophisticated, survey methodology. The author brings best practices from political science and public health to the survey table, allowing her to present data, and analysis, of vital importance.”

    James Ron - Harold E. Stassen Chair of International Affairs, University of Minnesota

CURRENT BOOK PROJECT

Why Conflicts Become Ethnic

a book project with Alexandra Siegel

Illustration of a protest in Lebanon with people holding signs and Lebanese flags, some wearing masks, and various messages in Arabic and English opposing civil war and advocating for freedom and sovereignty.
Illustration of a protest in Lebanon with people holding signs and Lebanese flags, some wearing masks, and various messages in Arabic and English opposing civil war and advocating for freedom and sovereignty.

Fourate Chahal El Rebkaby

Ethnic conflict is often understood as violence between fixed ethnic groups, but constructivist perspectives emphasize that conflict itself can reshape and sharpen ethnic identities. This project develops a new framework for studying the ethnicization of conflict, which we define as a dynamic process through which ethnic identities become more salient and/or new ethnic identities are constructed in the context of conflict. We document when and to what extent ethnicization occurs, identify who and what drives it, and explain why conflicts follow different ethnic trajectories.

This project is supported by a two-year Distinguished Scholar Award from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

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Articles

  • The politics of allyship: Multiethnic coalitions and mass attitudes toward protest

    Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2024

    While the role of advantaged group allies in disadvantaged group social movements is hotly debated, their impact on public opinion has received little scholarly attention. We fill this gap by examining how allies affect public opinion toward disadvantaged group protests. Using a survey experiment and social media analysis of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, we find a positive impact for allies.

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  • International recognition and support for violence among nonpartisans

    Journal of Peace Research, 2023

    What reduces individual support for the use of violence among groups seeking self-determination? This article advances a new explanation for changes in popular support for violence – international recognition – and evaluates this explanation using a survey experiment of Palestinians priming the 2012 UNGA recognition of Palestine.

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  • From the Schools to the Streets: Education and Anti-Regime Resistance in the West Bank

    Comparative Political Studies, 2019

    Are better educated individuals more likely to engage in anti-regime resistance and why? Scholars of democratic politics widely view education as a key factor shaping political participation. Yet, the effect of education on participation in noninstitutionalized political conflict is less well understood.

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  • Recognition Matters! UN State Status and Attitudes Towards Territorial Compromise

    Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2017

    Does international recognition of statehood affect support for territorial compromise among groups engaged in struggles for self-determination? We show that, contrary to skepticism about the impact of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), international recognition of statehood by the UNGA shapes mass attitudes toward territorial compromise.

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  • The Effects of Authoritarian Iconography: An Experimental Test (with Sarah Bush, Aaron Erlich and Lauren Prather)

    Comparative Political Studies, 2016

    Do public images of state leaders affect individuals’ political attitudes and behaviors? If so, why do they have that effect and among whom? Authoritarian iconography could increase compliance with and support for the state via three causal mechanisms: legitimacy, self-interest, and coercion.

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