From Monopoly to Orchestration: The Hilltop and Farm Youth and the Changing Organization of State Coercion - the Israeli Case

Authors

• Idan YaronFollow

Keywords

Israel, state building, terrorism, Hilltop and Farm Youth, far-right, Palestine West Bank

Document Type

Essay

Abstract

Drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic fieldwork – as a social anthropologist, studying the Far Right in Israel, on the ground, and through intimate and prolonged relationships with opinion leaders and rank-and-file activists – this essay examines the Hilltop and Farm Youth in the West Bank to reconsider Charles Tilly's influential account of state formation and the organization of coercion. It asks a simple but troubling question: why would a powerful modern state, fully capable of suppressing autonomous violent actors, sometimes allow them to persist? I argue that Tilly's theory should be confirmed, adapted, and amended. His fundamental insights into the relationships among war, coercion, protection, resources, and territory remain compelling. Yet contemporary states can organize these relationships in ways that Tilly did not fully anticipate. I introduce the concept of "selective orchestration of coercive autonomy" to describe a situation in which a strong state may suppress some autonomous actors while tolerating, protecting, enabling, legitimating, or cooperating with others – without necessarily directing their actions. State power, therefore, need not depend on elimination of all autonomous coercion. The ability to govern its distribution can itself become an expression of power. By distinguishing this configuration from state weakness, vigilantism, proxy warfare, state-sponsored terrorism, and state terrorism, the essay offers a more precise way to understand both the changing organization of state coercion and the political responsibility it entails.

Recommended Citation

Yaron, Idan (2026) "From Monopoly to Orchestration: The Hilltop and Farm Youth and the Changing Organization of State Coercion - the Israeli Case," Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social Analysis: Vol. 4: Iss. 6, Article 3.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55533/2765-8414.1198
Available at: https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/emancipations/vol4/iss6/3