Betwixt and Between Global and Domestic Forms Of Justice: The Israeli Case Over Time

This article elaborates on the global/domestic binary division in the social psychology of justice judgments. We analyze the interplay between global and domestic perspectives on justice behavior and theoretically represent and empirically examine the dynamics of a society's domestic system of distributive justice within a global context. The intersection of these two contesting, though intertwined, perspectives of justice is explored in the case of Israel. Integrating conceptualizations of neoliberal globalization, social justice, and the socio-cultural and historical conditions of Israeli society, we gauge the effect of macro-level globalization trends on the Israeli domestic 'spheres of justice' as evaluated by a representative sample of secular youth. We find that neoliberal globalization trends present a considerable challenge to Israeli Zionism’s foundational pioneering ethos. Yet the 2011 cohort of Israeli adolescents have not unanimously embraced neoliberal principles of global justice. This suggests that individuals are guided by a complex justice belief-system that encompasses both neo-liberal global principles and the social-justice tenets of the domestic arena, creating co-existing and at times contradictory social justice judgment profiles.