Disabling Ideas – Disabling Policies: The Case of Disability Employment Policy in the Newly Established Israeli State

By integrating a social perspective of disability with an ideational approach to social policy, the present study seeks to illuminate the central role of ideas in shaping disability policy. Using employment policy towards civilian disabled people in the newly established Israeli State (1948–65) as a case study, this examination highlights the key role played by the Israeli welfare system in excluding disabled people and structuring the disability category. This case illustrates how the paradigmatic perception of disability, loaded with patronizing attitudes towards the new Mizrachi immigrants, operated both as ‘cognitive locks’ and as a means for gradual yet transformative change. It is argued that this kind of ideational change is best identified and interpreted by assuming that paradigms are relational in nature.