Übung The Israeli Political System in Comparative Perspective

For more than six decades, the survival of Israel's democratic system of government, under intense external and internal pressures, has been facilitated by four characteristics of its society and politics. First, a cultural aspect: a commitment to a national coalescent orientation on the part of the vast majority of the Israeli population, stemming from sentiments of Jewish solidarity and from the tradition of multi-party democratic politics inherited from the Zionist Yishuv, the Jewish community in Palestine prior to 1948. Second, a structural aspect: multiplicity of crosscutting social cleavages that provide for the diffusing 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 that made it possible to allocate more than what is extracted from society. And, fourth, a political aspect: oligarchic inclinations of a political elite, composed of professional politicians, whose common interest was 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, meagre resources, internal divisions and external threats to its very existence? Such concerns almost totally disappeared in the early 1970s. Against this background, this course provides an examination of key features of Israel’s political system, drawing on concepts and theories from comparative politics. Gregory S. Mahler, Politics and Government in Israel: The Maturation of a Modern State; D. Peretz & G. Doron, The Government and Politics of Israel, Harper Collins Publishers Inc. 1997; HE. Sprinzak & L. Diamond (eds) Israel Democracy Under Stress, Lynne Rienner Publishers Boulder and London 1993; D. Korn, Public Policy in Israel: Perspectives and Practices, Lexington Books, 2002 Bemerkung Blockveranstaltung Anmeldung Anmeldung zur Veranstaltung über Coremato von 24.09. bis 30.09.2014 unter: http://www.gsi.uni-muenchen.de/studium/organisation/ole/index.html Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politikwissenschaft LMU München WiSe 1415 Prof. Dr. Korn Dan