Short Course Description
The more than seven decades of Israel's democratic system of government, under intense external and internal pressures, have been facilitated by four major characteristics of its society and politics. First, a cultural aspect: a commitment to a national coalescent orientation on the part of the majority of Israeli population, stemming from sentiments of Jewish solidarity and from the tradition of multi-party democratic politics inherited from the Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine prior to 1948. Second, a structural aspect: multiplicity of crosscutting social cleavages that provide for the diffusion of tensions stemming from internal social conflict. Third, an economic aspect: availability of external resources such as US foreign aid programs, German reparations and Jewish donations. Those made it possible to allocate resources beyond what was extracted from society. And, forth, a political aspect: oligarchic inclinations of political elites composed of professional politicians, whose common interests have been to avoid ideological controversies and political confrontations among themselves.
In the early days of the state a serious concern was raised: can Israel survive as a democracy facing the difficulties resulting from mass immigration, meager resources, internal divisions and external threats to its very existence? By the early 1970s, such concerns largely dissipated. The Israeli body-politic has proven cohesive enough to overcome tensions stemming from fragmented party politics, deep social and cultural cleavages, fundamental ideological schisms and an involvement in protracted conflicts with neighboring states and the Palestinians. Those have become particularly urgent in the aftermath of the October 7th attacks and the Israel-Hamas war of 2023-24.
These achievements were facilitated by the emergence of a pattern of politics, indeed, a political culture, that puts a strong emphasis on the pursuit of political accommodation among social groupings, political parties and ideological strands even at the expense of compromising their respective manifest interests, aspirations and programs. Such accommodation, however, has been put to the test with the proposed judicial reform of 2023 and the ensuing mass social protests against it. Moreover, the mobilization capabilities of Israel's governments have been remarkable by any standard. They were capable of inducing the citizens to accept willingly such burdens as high taxation, harsh economic measures and long conscript and reserve military service. Israel has done all these without loss of public support for its central political and social institutions, but in early 2024, with the war and expanding social cleavages and political schisms, such accomplishments are at risk.
Seminar objectives
The seminar has three major objectives. First, we will analyze the major features of Israel's political system and compare it to other democratic countries. Second, we will examine the question of democracy under stress - the politics of a state striving to be Jewish and Democratic. Third, we will relate the theories studied in class to day-to-day contemporary Israeli politics (students will be expected to be up-to-date concerning the current events in Israeli politics). All this will be done within the analytic framework of the analysis of conflicts and their resolution, with some application in practice.
Full Syllabus
