This dissertation departs from the common understanding that the democratic challenge is to strike the right balance between security and democracy; rather it asserts that the relations between security and democracy are discursively constructed by political actors. The dissertation takes as case study a state where the security discourse has been acute and omnipresent since the very beginning of its establishment: Israel. Drawing on discourse theory premises and narrative analyses, the research enlightens how the security-democracy nexus is articulated in political discourse. The study offers a careful analysis of a set of debates held within the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, over laws and decisions taken in the name of security and that generated discussions over democratic values and principles. The main focus of the analysis is the post-second intifada laws, but the study also offers account of previous discursive articulations at play in the 1980s. Indeed, the understanding of the discursive articulations of the security democracy nexus would not be possible without digging into the roots of its discursive articulations. The overall work gives a detailed account of the way the dominant narrative, by articulating security and democracy in a "defensive democracy" story, has reproduced and reshaped the boundaries of the Israeli polity. / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished