Guy Ben-Porat Receives Ernst-Otto Czempiel Award 2008

His book on the role of globalization in the Middle East and the Northern Ireland Conflicts was honored as best work in peace research of the past two years

The Israeli political scientist Dr Guy Ben-Porat received the Ernst-Otto Czempiel Award of the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) for his book “Global Liberalism, Local Populism: Peace and Conflict in Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland” (2006). This award for the best book published within the past couple of years in the field of peace research, was presented for the first time on 11 October in Frankfurt. The jury estimated Ben-Porat’s book as “academically outstanding and his approach as extraordinarily innovative”, said Prof. Dr Harald Müller, chairman of the jury and PRIF’s Executive Director.



Guy Ben-Porat’s comparative study analyzes the conflicts in Israel/Palestine and Northern Ireland in the context of globalization. In the 1990s hopes aroused that the long-term conflicts could be terminated peacefully. But both peace processes repeatedly faltered, and new violence erupted. Ben-Porat examines theses cycles of progress and setbacks, viewing them from a perspective of worldwide economic liberalization. Local political and economic elites hoped that trade across borders, new technologies, and growing prosperity would also bring peace. But Ben-Porat shows that globalization also always encounters resistance of the ones who do not benefit of it – and therefore, in a way of counter movement, become enemies of peace processes and fuel conflicts anew.

 

Ben-Porat is senior lecturer at the Ben-Gurion-University in Beer-Sheva and research fellow at the Van-Leer Institute in Jerusalem, Israel. Currently, he is on a sabbatical at the University of California, Davis, USA. He studied at the universities of Tel-Aviv, Israel, and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, USA. His research focus lies on globalization and governance, especially in conflict states.



The Ernst-Otto Czempiel Award was brought into being on the occasion of its name giver’s and PRIF’s co-founder’s 80th birthday in July 2007. The political scientist and doyen of peace research dedicated his academic career to the search for peaceful conflict resolutions. He coined the definition of peace as “a process of decreasing violence and increasing justice”. The Ernst-Otto Czempiel Award is given to the best book published after her/his dissertation by a young scientist not older than 45 years. The book has to be published within the past couple auf years; the prize is awarded every two years. The Ernst-Otto Czempiel Award has been announced internationally, it is endowed with 5,000.- euros. It therefore is one of the highest remunerated scientific awards in peace research in Germany and it closes a gap in the postdoctoral promotion of young academics: Up to now, there has been no other prize that is awarded for the so-called “second book”, meaning the monography after the dissertation, in this country.

 

Please click here for the pdf-download with the laudation by Prof. Dr Harald Müller, chairman of the award jury and PRIF’s Executive Director.