Palestinian unity and everyday state formation: subaltern ‘ungovernmentality’ versus elite interests

With Palestine gaining increasing international recognition for its sovereignty aspirations, this paper investigates the ongoing Palestinian state-formation process. It examines how far grassroots movements, domestic political leaderships and international actors have promoted or undermined intra-Palestinian unity and societal consensus around the rules, design and extent of a future Palestinian state. The paper introduces the novel concept of everyday state formation as a crucial form of grassroots agency in this process. Moreover, it illustrates the internal tensions of contemporary statebuilding: without reconciliation across multiple scales – local to global – the complex interactions of structural, governmental and subaltern power tend to build societal fragility into emerging state structures.