This edited book constitutes the first detailed attempt at a comparative international analysis of the transformations that are currently affecting the composition of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and their place in Israeli society.

Focusing primarily on deviations from the traditional norm of universal military service, the book compares the emergence of a new type of citizen army in Israel with the formats that have in recent decades become evident in other western democracies. In addition, these essays correct the conventional tendency to concentrate almost exclusively on the influences stimulating military institutional change in the West, and thereby to overlook the equally important factors that retard its momentum. By contrast, this volume deliberately highlights the brakes as well as the accelerators in current processes, thereby presenting a far more faithful picture of their complexity.

This book will be of much interest to students of Israeli politics, military studies, Middle Eastern politics, security studies and IR in general.

Stuart Cohen is a senior research associate of the BESA (Begin-Sadat) Center for Strategic Studies and also teaches political studies at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. His most recent book is Israel and its Army: From Cohesion to Confusion (Routledge, 2008).