Continuity And Change In Political Culture

Ten leading scholars and practitioners of politics, political science, anthropology, Israel studies, and Middle East affairs address the theme of continuity and change in political culture as a tribute to Professor Myron (Mike) J. Aronoff whose work on political culture has built conceptual and methodological bridges between political science and anthropology. Topics include the legitimacy of the two-state solution, identity and memory, denationalization, the role of trust in peace negotiations, democracy, majority-minority relations, inclusion and exclusion, Biblical and national narratives, art in public space, and avant-garde theater. Countries covered include Israel, Palestine, the United States, the Basque Autonomous Region of Spain, and Poland. The first four chapters by Yael S. Aronoff, Saliba Sarsar, Yossi Beilin, and Nadav Shelef examine aspects of the conflict and peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, including alternative solutions. The contributions by Naomi Chazan, Ilan Peleg, and Joel Migdal tackle challenges to democracy in Israel, in other divided societies, and in the creation of the American public. Yael Zerubavel, Roland Vazquez, and Jan Kubik focus their analyses on aspects of national memory, memorialization, and dramatization. Mike Aronoff relates his work on various aspects of political culture to each chapter in an integrative essay in the Epilogue.

The 2013 elections took place less than two years after the overwhelming wave of social protests of summer 2011. At first, the election campaign did not raise much public interest, but the emergence of new players and young political forces energized the political race. Polls conducted throughout the campaign greatly deviated from the final results, which eventually enabled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to form a cabinet again, despite a loss of 11 seats for his list. This book describes and analyses a variety of political and sociological developments in Israel both before and after the elections. These include the nature of the campaign, the developments in the National Camp, among religious Zionists, the ultra-Orthodox parties, and the Russian vote. Furthermore, it assesses the impact of media, including new media. The variety of subjects makes the book suitable for undergraduate and graduate students in Middle-Eastern, Israeli, and Jewish studies, as well as political science and liberal arts in general. Israel at the Polls has been updated and published regularly for thirty-five years, providing readers with up-to-date analysis and continuity of scholarship. This book offers a long-term assessment of Israeli politics. This book was published as a special issue of Israel Affairs.

The intellectual history of the Civic Culture concept / Gabriel A. Almond -- The structure of inference / Arend Lijphart -- The Civic Culture : a philosophic critique / Carole Pateman -- The Civic Culture from a Marxist-sociological perspective / Jerzy J. Wiatr -- Political culture in Great Britain : The decline of The Civic Culture / Dennis Kavanagh -- The United States : political culture under stress / Alan I. Abramowitz -- Changing German political culture : continuity and change / Giacomo Sani -- Political culture in Mexico : continuities and revisionist interpretations / Ann L. Craig and Wayne A. Cornelius -- On revisiting The Civic Culture : a personal postcript / Sidney Verba

The essays here attempt to move beyond the question of Israel's "uniqueness" to examine the pace and direction of change of Israel's political, social and economic institutions.

In a world increasingly characterised by perpetual re-invention through the dynamic flows of capital, persons and ideas, understanding change and transformation is an imperative. The purpose of this book is a first step in a project to engage the dynamics of transformation at the interface of culture and politics, through contextualisation, reflection and a sharing of intellectual resources. Bringing together the work of academics from a range of disciplines, who share an overarching aim to map such transformations, the volume covers themes ranging from popular culture, the Internet, to film and cinema. Casting a contemporary gaze on cultural phenomena, the contributors all seek to trace trajectories of change and continuity from within their own specific field, using a range of approaches from theoretical reflection to empirical case studies. Of general interest to students of the humanities and social sciences, and of particular interest for students of cultural studies and communication at all levels, this volume constitutes a unique opportunity to reflect on recent transformations but also on the persistence of certain cultural and political practices.

Where is Turkey heading? The internal and external policy reorientation of the AKP since the year 2002 makes this question justified. According to the political language of the ruling AKP elite, Turkish society has entered a phase of a 'new Turkey' with more democracy and economic development. One thing is certain: with the rise in power of the AKP, Turkish politics is gaining a new dynamic, which is full of conflict and is leading to reform of the political domain. This anthology explores these processes of change and the continuity of Turkish political culture during this period. It devotes particular attention to the influence of the AKP government's policy on Turkey's political and cultural order. The individual contributions it contains are therefore concerned with the question of the changes in and continuity of political and cultural patterns. With this focus, they allow conclusions to be drawn concerning Turkey's political order and, in particular, the question of democratisation.