Post-Colonial Settlement Strategy

Ehud Eiran compares three major settlement projects – Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, Morocco in Western Sahara and Indonesia in East-Timor – to discover why states launch settlements against international norms. He argues that post-colonial settlement projects are a distinct cluster of cases, separate from traditional colonial studies.

An explanation for the launch of modern settlement projects, contra international trends and norms

Explores the motivations behind contemporary (post-1960) settlement projects into occupied territories

Settlement projects are sustained clusters of policies that allow states to strategically plan, implement and support the permanent transfer of nationals into a territory not under their sovereignty. Ehud Eiran explains why states launch settlement projects into occupied areas and introduces the international environment as an important enabling variable. By drawing comparisons between three such major projects--Israel in the West Bank and Gaza, Morocco in Western Sahara and Indonesia in East-Timor--Ehud Eiran classifies post-colonial settlement projects as a distinct cluster of cases that warrant a different analytical approach to traditional colonial studies.

Built on a careful synthesis of existing principles in international relations theory and empirical research, the book advances a clearly formulated theoretical position on the launch of post-colonial settlement projects. The result yields a number of fresh insights into the relationship between conflict, territory and international norms.