Research & Publications

Political discourse, collective identities, power, and institutional life.

Across different social and institutional contexts, my research examines how political conflicts and broader power relations become embedded in everyday life through discourse, meaning-making, and social practices. The selected publications explore how individuals and organizations interpret, negotiate, reproduce, and challenge these dynamics : from interpersonal encounters and political conversations to organizational collaborations and professional life.

2026 · Work and Occupations

The Boundaries of Care

Ben-David, Y., Adar, M., & Rubel-Lifschitz, T. (2026). The boundaries of care: The revelation of invisible social labor in a time of crisis. Work and Occupations. Advance online publication.

How do institutional discourses and power relations shape the boundaries of professional responsibility?

Drawing on a qualitative study of Israeli teachers during the COVID-19 pandemic, this article introduces the concept of invisible social labor—work performed within professional roles to meet broader societal needs, yet remaining largely unrecognized. Using a Foucauldian perspective, it examines how institutional discourses, disciplinary mechanisms, and internalized moral obligations expand and normalize expectations of care, revealing how power operates across individual, organizational, and societal spheres.

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2023 · Organization Studies

The Right to Success

Ben-David, Y., & Rubel-Lifschitz, T. (2023). The right to success: Paradoxical tensions between contested logics in a multi-sectoral collaboration to promote scientific excellence in Israel. Organization Studies, 44(12), 2031–2055.

How do competing institutional meanings and shifting power relations shape organizational collaboration?

Following a multi-sectoral initiative to promote STEM education in Israel, this study examines how competing institutional logics and understandings of success shape collaboration between civil society, business, and the state. It reveals how shifting power relations, contested meanings, and tensions between economic and social objectives influence organizational practices and outcomes, developing a process model of how paradoxical tensions evolve over time.

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2021 · Political Psychology

Eyes Wide Shut

Ben-David, Y., & Idan, O. (2021). Eyes wide shut: Political ideology as a tool of discursive avoidance among Israeli-Jewish students in the context of escalating conflict. Political Psychology, 42(3), 371–387.

How does political discourse reproduce power and sustain conflict by shaping what can—and cannot—be discussed?

Through critical discourse analysis of group discussions among Jewish-Israeli students following the 2014 Gaza war, this study examines how political identities and ideological divisions shape interpersonal dialogue. It shows how escalating arguments between left and right can serve as a mechanism of discursive avoidance, diverting attention from the suffering of Palestinians and the moral implications of the broader conflict.

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2019 · Journal of Sociology

The Subjective Experience of Power

Ben-David, Y. (2019). The subjective experience of power: Its implications for the maintenance of and resistance to power in relations among Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel. Journal of Sociology, 55(3), 478–494.

How do subjective experiences of power shape its reproduction and resistance in everyday interactions?

Based on in-depth interviews with Jewish and Palestinian citizens of Israel, this study examines how individuals interpret their positions within intersecting social hierarchies. It identifies four experiences of power—insecure, ambivalent, subversive, and internal—demonstrating how subjective interpretations and individual agency can reproduce, challenge, or transform power relations in everyday interactions.

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Current Research

FORTHCOMING BOOK · UNDER CONTRACT

Paradoxes of Discourse: Security, Morality, and Politically Polarized Conversations in Israel

Yael Ben-David & Orly Idan

De Gruyter Brill · Manuscript in preparation

Complete Publications

PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES

Ben-David, Y., Adar, M., & Rubel-Lifschitz, T. (2026). The boundaries of care: The revelation of invisible social labor in a time of crisis. Work and Occupations. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/07308884261430337

Icekson, T., Kaye-Tzadok, A., & Ben-David, Y. (2024). Leaders in times of transition: Virtual self-efficacy, participant behaviors, and leader perceptions of adaptive interpersonal group processes. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/gdn0000208

Ben-David, Y., & Rubel-Lifschitz, T. (2023). The right to success: Paradoxical tensions between contested logics in a multisectoral collaboration to promote scientific excellence in Israel. Organization Studies, 44(12), 2031–2055. https://doi.org/10.1177/01708406231185976

Ben-David, Y., Icekson, T., & Kaye-Tzadok, A. (2021). Lost in the matrix: Dialectical tensions in facilitating virtual video groups during the COVID-19 pandemic. Internet Interventions, 26, 100445. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.invent.2021.100445

Ben-David, Y., & Idan, O. (2021). Eyes wide shut: Political ideology as a tool of discursive avoidance among Israeli-Jewish students in the context of escalating conflict. Political Psychology, 42(3), 371–387. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12702

Ben-David, Y., & Idan, O. (2019). “We don’t have to talk about how I feel”: Practices of power and resistance in political discourse among Israeli students—A gendered sociolinguistic perspective. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 21(2), 271–294. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616742.2018.14974502

Ben-David, Y., & Rubel-Lifschitz, T. (2018). Practice the change you want to see in the world: Transformative practices of social movements in Israel. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 24(1), 10–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000268

Ben-David, Y., Hameiri, B., Benheim, S., Leshem, B., Sarid, A., Sternberg, M., Nadler, A., & Sagy, S. (2017). Exploring ourselves within intergroup conflict: The role of intragroup dialogue in promoting acceptance of collective narratives and willingness toward reconciliation. Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 23(3), 269–277. https://doi.org/10.1037/pac0000205

Nadler, A., Gorodzeisky-Harpaz, G., & Ben-David, Y. (2009). Defensive helping: Threat to group identity, in-group identification, status stability, and common group identity as determinants of intergroup help-giving. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(5), 823–834.

PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES — HEBREW

Ben-David, Y. (2026). Where has shame gone? The dialectics of security and morality in Israeli political discourse in the wake of the October 7 war [Hebrew]. Israeli Sociology. Online first.

Rubel-Lifschitz, T., Avraham-Weiss, S., & Ben-David, Y. (2024). Between freedom of expression and maintaining cohesion in the academic community: Managing paradoxical tensions during war [Hebrew]. Organizational Analysis: Journal of Organizational Consulting, 30, 3–7.

Rubel-Lifschitz, T., & Ben-David, Y. (2014). Organizational consulting in fields of conflict: Insights from working with social-change organizations [Hebrew]. Organizational Analysis, 19, 7–28.

CHAPTERS IN EDITED VOLUMES

Ben-David, Y., & Idan, O. (2023). Talking politics: The delimitation of the “political” as a gendered disciplinary mechanism—Intragroup dialogue among young Israelis. In F. Ferrari & M. Leiner (Eds.), Encountering the Suffering of the Other: Transdisciplinary Studies from the Project Hearts of Flesh—Not Stone. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Ben-David, Y., & Idan, O. (2020). Encountering the other’s narrative: Implications for gendered intragroup dynamics. In A. Mana & A. Srur (Eds.), Collective Narratives in Intractable Conflict: The Case of the Israeli and Palestinian Societies. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Ben-David, Y., & Rubel-Lifschitz, T. (2020). Organizational consulting from a critical perspective [Hebrew]. In M. Krumer-Nevo, I. Weiss-Gal, & R. Strier (Eds.), Critical Practices in Therapy and Consultation. Resling.

Ben-David, Y., & Rubel-Lifschitz, T. (2018). A cross-sectoral collaboration broadens the circle of excellence in STEM education in Israel: The story of the 5×2 initiative [Hebrew]. In K. T. Sheferman (Ed.), The Challenge of Excellence and the Israeli Spirit. Resling.

Nadler, A., Halabi, S., Harpaz-Gorodeisky, G., & Ben-David, Y. (2010). Helping relations as status relations. In M. Mikulincer & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Prosocial Motives, Emotions, and Behavior: The Better Angels of Our Nature (pp. 181–200). American Psychological Association.