Nigel Parsons Chapter Summary

Nigel Parsons’ book is clearly a well-researched and detailed account of how the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) transitioned into the Palestinian Authority (PA) and how the PA has failed to reach its goal of full statehood. Using a hybrid structure created from the literature surrounding regime change, Parsons creates a new way at looking at the transition in terms of political change. This is an interesting concept as it has applications well beyond just the PLO’s transformation to legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, such as Sinn Fein’s transformation in Ireland and Herri Batasuna’s ongoing transformation in Spain. In the first chapter of the book, a framework of seven characteristics that allow a rebel group to

This leads to a bit of confusion over what the book is actually trying to accomplish. The importance of this chapter is that it explains the beginnings of the PLO and the conflict to the reader, but due to the clarity issues, the reader is left at the end of the chapter not knowing quite what to expect next. Fortunately, the following chapters do not inherit the clarity issues of this chapter and are a compelling look into the inner workings of PLO and the PA as the transformation was taking place. Chapter three finishes out part one of the book by looking in-depth at the Madrid, Washington, and Oslo negotiations, which essentially lead to the creation of a legitimate and internationally recognized Palestinian national project and the solidification of the PLO as the sole legitimate leadership for the Palestinian

“Oslo had offered a path out of crisis by promising an institutional solution to the issue of Palestinian self-determination. But, it did so only via a framework that subverted the PLO’s mandate and frustrated the Palestinian just expectations of what that institutional solution would mean.” (p. 121) It is not clear what role the US played in all of this other than the fact that Israel seemed to have the US act as ‘goons’ to force the Palestinians to accept whatever Israel wanted. The third and final section of the book focuses on the PA’s state-building efforts and the implosion of the Oslo negotiations. The Rentier State is used to further explore and expand the ways in which the institutional cohesion of the PLO, and later the PA, was directly linked to Arafat as leader through both the financial contributions to the organization and his central role in Fatah. Parsons attributes Arafat’s dominance within the structure of the PLO and the PA to the way the executive divisions of the two organizations were structured. The representatives at the executive leadership level within the PLO, and as the transition occurred in the PA, were based in the diaspora and upon their return the issues and concerns of the executives did not directly translate to the constituencies within the West Bank and Gaza. An extensive and detailed institutional analysis