Palestinian Civil Society

Benoît Challand is a research fellow at the European University Institute in Florence (Italy) and has taught at the universities of Bologna, Bethlehem, Pavia and Fribourg.

"This book is a masterpiece for understanding the civil society sphere in the Palestinian territory… Benoît Challand presents one of the most important studies in the growing corpus about civil society and NGOs in the Arab World. …. Challand rightly wages a war against culturalist and essentialist discourses, exposing the dominant emphasis on culture and division to explain the supposed civil society deficit in Arab-Islamic areas."- Sari Hanafi, American University of Beirut, Lebanon; International Sociology 2011 26"Challand’s research is fascinating, and the basic argument is sound. The focus on participation—rather than the devalued and contested concept of "democratization"— is innovative and useful beyond the bounds of Palestine... [T]he intelligent and critical Challand has conducted extensive and thoughtful primary research in the Arabic language... the book advances an important and novel argument about foreign donors exacerbating Palestinian heteronomy. He points the way toward a more critical examination of NGOs and civil society, and his fidelity to on-the-ground fieldwork is well worth emulating." - Laleh Khalili, School of Oriental and African Studies; Perspectives on Politics, September 2009 | Vol. 7/No. 3"Benoît Challand’s book on Palestinian civil society is an important work for two reasons: first, for the admirable understanding he has of the philosophical literature on civil society, and, second, for his attempt to expand the scope of research on civil society in the Arab Middle East to include international actors." Kevin Gray, Journal of Palestine Studies 40(3), 125f.

• 1. Introduction: One Civil Society, Two Palestines Part 1: Clearing the Ground 2. Debating Civil Society: Internationally and in the Arab Middle East 3. Setting the Historical Framework on Palestinian NGOs and International Donors Part 2: Civil Society at Work 4. International Donors and the Professionalization of Civil Society Promotion 5. Managing the Discourse of Civil Society 6. The Exclusionary Dimensions of Civil Society 7. Conclusions: Looking ‘Beyond the Pale’