Community-based organizations motivated by religious ideology as a driving force behind shaping urban governance: the israeli case

By: Dahan Y.
Published in: Politics, Religion and Ideology
SDGs : SDG 11  |  Units:   | Time: 2019 |  Link
Description: This study analyzes and highlights the political culture of community-based organizations (CBOs) as a powerful mechanism that shapes a certain mode of urban governance. The empirical section demonstrates this by presenting and analyzing a case study of the urban coalitions created by the Israeli government and various CBOs engaged in social activity on behalf of lower-class neighborhoods and towns, at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Although at first sight such a bi-partnership reflects a common universal mode of governance, findings of political cultural analysis reveal a unique pattern in which the civic body is operated and energized by a religious missionary and paternalistic base, driven by highly passionate and motivated ideological activists, which clearly influences the nature of urban governance (the governance logic, strategy and the services given to community). These findings shed a critical light on theoretical approaches and frameworks that exclude the humanistic base of knowledge. The study outlines a better way of dealing with the complicated relationship between politics, religion, culture, and geography. © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.