SATHSCIF · State Agents on Trial: Hierarchies of State Criminality in Israel and France

Since WWII, global politics has developed a heightened sensitivity to state violence. Although this sensitivity contributed to a reduction in state violence, it also constructed an economy of state criminality that situates sex crimes as the worst atrocity while normalising other forms of violence. This logic is further exacerbated when state security agents (SSAs) stand trial for crimes committed during service. These trials require the public to come to terms with the cost of security and renegotiate the boundaries between legitimate and illegitimate state violence. Studying SSAs’ trials as sites of contention over the state’s legitimate use of violence, I will explore: (1) What hierarchies are at work in shaping conceptions and reactions to state criminality? (2) What do these hierarchies teach us about social and political tolerance of state violence? and (3) Which political, social, and moral factors are at work in transforming hierarchies of state criminality? Conducting qualitative research based on archival work, I will explore how legal-normative infrastructures facilitate hierarchies of state crime in Israel and France from WWII to the end of the 20th century. By studying SSAs’ trials in these sites, the project will develop a model to assess hierarchies of state criminality based on three categories of felonies: crimes against body and life and property and sex crimes. I hypothesise that a different hierarchy is at play when SSAs commit such felonies compared to ordinary citizens. When SSAs are the perpetrators, I expect to find that property and sex crimes are judged more harshly than crimes against life and body that can be justified as a security necessity. If so, it is essential to design policies that break down these hierarchies, treating state criminality holistically. This research will therefore produce recommendations for human rights organisations to promote new methodologies and theoretical approaches to state criminality.