Culture, Strategy and Foreign Policy Change:

Abstract

What forces within Israel made possible its embrace of the Oslo Accords? I argue that a defining feature of Rabin's practices and policies was to create, however temporarily, a cultural space in Israeli politics in which a withdrawal from the territories became desirable and legitimate. To understand this outcome requires a blend of constructivist and institutionalist claims — the normative structure that constitutes and constrains actors also provides the wellspring for social practices and allows for strategic action; such strategizing occurs in a normative and an institutional context; and strategic action can be designed to rewrite the cultural landscape in order to legitimate foreign policy change. I employ the trinity of concepts of identity, narratives and frames as they are created and animated within an institutional context, and apply this conceptual architecture to understand Israel's road to Oslo.