Articles and Essays by ALON HELLED
Central European Political Science Review, 2025
Sovereignty is a milestone in state-building processes. No polity can
be conceptualised without e... more Sovereignty is a milestone in state-building processes. No polity can
be conceptualised without establishing its sovereignty, nor can it be
considered modern without endorsing nation-building. Yet, whereas
the generalisation of the two components is inherent in the predominant nation-state model, the trajectory of the Israeli case reveals
some original specificities in terms of national habitus-making, identified as Jewish and Zionist, whilst presenting multiple historical,
cultural and socio-political variations. The article traces and reconstructs the key-elements in the national, sovereign, political Jewish
polity. It centres on the ideal-type of political entity in the processual
socio-genesis of Jewish statehood and peoplehood.
Keywords: habitus, sovereignty, national identity, polity, state-building, Judaism, Israel
DE EUROPA, 2025
Tackling the structures of contemporary political life, constituted by nation, state and politica... more Tackling the structures of contemporary political life, constituted by nation, state and political regime, is no easy task. Many scholars have dedicated research to decipher the interlinks, even interdependencies, between state-building, nation-building and the formation of political regimes. By crossing centuries and deconstructing the sedimentation of political phenomena that have characterised domestic political life as well as international relations, the essay reviews some of the major features of what it suggests to be a triadic nation-state-regime edifice. With a specific attention paid to Italian and European societies, issues concerning democratic rule, sovereignism, nationalism, populism and so forth are scrutinised, whilst using processual analysis that indicates lacks and excesses in the Western model of a nation-state-based collectivity. The essay briefly introduces the interdependent threefold infrastructure of modern national statehood and juxtaposes some of the main theses which shaped contemporary political thought. It thus draws from recent scientific literature from which it takes inspiration in bridging different scholarly sensibilities. While placing the Italian case, the European context and the vaster Western morphology of nation-state-democracy combination, the essay adds two other variables that have shaped European and Western citizenry: ideology and nostalgia. The latter are then discussed through both theoretical and empirical exemplification of the dynamic dialectics between individuals, collectivity and societal order. The state of contemporary Western democracy is thus put in relation to its long-term institutional and mental stratification, as forged by national statehood and its seemingly ever-lasting hold.
Key-words: democracy, national statehood, Italy, European society, ideology, nostalgia
Quaderni di Sociologia, 96 - LXVIII | 2024, 13-31., 2024
The State of Israel could not have been founded without the legacy of the European Enlightenment.... more The State of Israel could not have been founded without the legacy of the European Enlightenment. Its founding ideology, i.e., European-born Zionism, acquired its political and social savoir-faire through the pursuit of modernization. Catalysed by the rise of “scientific” anti-Semitism, a societal transformation was engendered oscillating between societal rejection (the reaction of ultra-Orthodoxy) and the desire for civil equality through assimilation. This changed the hitherto stratified “habitus” of European Jewry. The independence of the Jewish and democratic state in 1948 was the fruit of these contradictory processes. Nevertheless, the equilibrium between the two fundamental components of Israeli sovereignty is in constant conflict. The particularistic Jewish character conditions democratic universalism, while the state’s legal infrastructure struggles to find convergence and institutional balance. The essay explores the obscure aspects of the Israeli paradox and weighs them against Israel’s progressive autocratization and democratic regression.
Sovereignty and (De)Civilizing Processes in the Israeli Habitus between Revolution and Counterrevolution: A Three-Act Story?, 2024
Sovereignty can be conceptualized in several fashions, as it consists in the definition of both l... more Sovereignty can be conceptualized in several fashions, as it consists in the definition of both legal and institutional power relations within and among political systems. This internal\external duality is especially true in the case of Israeli political and legal culture. The exilic features that had once characterized Jewish identity were gradually transformed into a national collectivity. In this sense the sociogenesis of the Jewish State was the result of both civilizing and decivilizing processes. The secularization of “Jewishness” emulated the political order adopted by non-Jewish societies and thus brought to its nationalization. Not only did it entail a spatiotemporal and institutional autonomization, whose trajectory was to legitimize the idea of an independent Jewish nation-state amongst the system of modern nation-states, but it also implied the construction ex novo of legal and institutional frames originating in Jewish and European traditions. This essay, inspired by Eliasian figurational sociology, historically traces and empirically discusses different aspects of Israeli statehood as an expression of Jewish nationhood and state sovereignty. It emphasizes the dialectical interconnections between legal and societal processes in the formation of Israel’s national habitus. The enquiry focuses on the country’s juridico-political changes in light of three major events: the 1948 Declaration of Independence, the so-called Constitutional Revolution, and the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. By using a historical and sociological analysis, Israeli sovereignty reveals its structures, contradictions, and transformations.
Israel Studies is a rather recent and fragmented discipline in the Italian academic system. Nonet... more Israel Studies is a rather recent and fragmented discipline in the Italian academic system. Nonetheless, the interest in Israel's geopolitical history has progressively emerged from Middle East and International Relations scholars as well as from some nonacademic actors seeking to understand the Israeli-Arab conflict and later on Israel's own sociopolitical complexity. Universities such as Venice and Pisa include Israeli history in various academic curricula while Florence University offers a specific course on Israel's History. The article reconstructs the development of Israel Studies in Italy by examining the decentralized academic dynamics and by contextualizing it within local academia and society.
Unstable political we-feelings in Italy and Israel: cyclical de-civilizing parabolas?, 2022
Do Italy and Israel attest progressive de-civilizing phenomena in light of erosion in political s... more Do Italy and Israel attest progressive de-civilizing phenomena in light of erosion in political stability and institutional paradigms? What are the differences between Italian and Israeli imperfect statehoods, revealing fluctuant tendencies in democratic civilizing and de-civilizing processes? Despite historical, political and sociological differences, both Italian and Israeli democracies have shown signs of political unrest and segmentation. The interaction between state and citizenry, anchored to national we- feelings, transformed the two countries into nation-state-based democratic republics which remain susceptible to instability, maybe even to disintegration, due to lasting sociopolitical and socio-cultural cleavages. The paper analyses the two states, and the democratic challenges they face, by using a long-term figurational analysis concerning three socio- historical properties that define their collective “self”: 1) the nation-state model; 2) democratic regime; 3) republicanism.
When Nations Adapt: National Resilience between State(s) and Identity(ies) by Helled & Pala, 2023
Nations are resilient and often taken for granted as an analytical category in most social scienc... more 
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Articles and Essays by ALON HELLED
be conceptualised without establishing its sovereignty, nor can it be
considered modern without endorsing nation-building. Yet, whereas
the generalisation of the two components is inherent in the predominant nation-state model, the trajectory of the Israeli case reveals
some original specificities in terms of national habitus-making, identified as Jewish and Zionist, whilst presenting multiple historical,
cultural and socio-political variations. The article traces and reconstructs the key-elements in the national, sovereign, political Jewish
polity. It centres on the ideal-type of political entity in the processual
socio-genesis of Jewish statehood and peoplehood.
Keywords: habitus, sovereignty, national identity, polity, state-building, Judaism, Israel
Key-words: democracy, national statehood, Italy, European society, ideology, nostalgia