Power And Ritual In The Israel Labor Party A Study In Political Anthropology

An anthropological study of a major national political party - one which dominated Israeli politics for nearly five decades and was returned to office in summer 1992. The analysis focuses on the relationship between culture and politics to explain the crucial role the Labour Party has played.

This fourth volume of Political Anthropology is the first in the series to be devoted entirely to a single country. Israel is currently undergoing a critical stage of transition in its development. The election of the first Likud government in 1977 ended fifty years of Labor dominance of the political system. It in-troduced new personalities, policies, symbols, and myths as it attempted to establish the legitimacy of the new regime. The 1981 election, which maintained the Likud rule, was the closest and one of the most violent in Israeli history; and one in which political and ethnic tensions reached an unprecedented peak. The election in 1984 will determine considerably more than just which part will rule the country. The very character of the nation is at stake. In this volume the most timely and pressing problems confronting Israeli society are analyzed by leading Israeli and American experts, utilizing the unique interdisciplinary focus of political anthropology. Aronoff analyzes the resurgence of political polarization after almost two decades of relative politi-cal quietude. Lewis astutely explains the role of ethnicity in Israeli politics and how it relates to foreign policy of the Likud government. Shokeid critically analyzes a case study exemplifying collective redefinition of status. Weissbrod sees the war in Lebanon as particularly noteworthy, because it was the first time that a significant part of the Israeli public questioned the justice of an Israeli war, especially during the initial victorious stages. Weisburd and Vinitzky demonstrate that the settlers of Gush Emunim have developed a "rational" ideological legitimization for their vigilante activities against the Arabs in the territories. Dominguez analyzes the meanings of "left" and "right" as multivocal and multifunctional terms in Israeli politics. This volume is the one book that will give you insight into and understanding of the most pressing problems facing Israeli society.

This series of the Israeli Sociological Society, whose object is to identify and clarify the major themes that occupy social research in Israel today, gathers together the best of Israeli social science investigation that was previously scattered in a large variety of international journals. Each book in the series is introduced by integrative essays. Each volume focuses on a particular topic; the first volume seeks out the dynamics of conflict and integration in a new society; the second volume is concerned with the sociology of a unique Israeli social institution—the kibbutz. The third volume presents sociological perspectives on political life and culture in Israel. Articles by leading scholars deal with: historical development; political culture and ideology; political institutions and behavior; the social basis of politics; and social change. Volume III also includes a select bibliography. Contributors to Volume III (tentative): Karl W. Deutsch, Yonathan Shapiro, Dan Horowitz, Moshe Lissak, Daniel Elazar, Asher Arian, Charles Liebman, Erik Cohen, Yoram Peri, Ephraim Yaar, S. Smooha.

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 years of Menachem Begin's leadership were among the most turbulent in Israeli history. Domestically, the preeminence of the Labor Alignment was successfully challenged, the Likud government failed to reduce Israel's high inflation rate, military and security expenditures reached new highs, and the politicization of economic policy increased. Internationally, although Israel's policy toward the occupied territories and its regional strategy were the focus of domestic and international debate, Begin's policies--departures from earlier norms--did successfully define Israel's foreign policy agenda, and his outlook is likely to continue to influence policy considerations. The contributors to this volume explore how Israel changed under Begin, the source of those changes, and how Israel is likely to evolve in a post-Begin era.

Many political commentators, both liberal and conservative, have argued that the 1980s were a period of fundamental conservative change. Some of them believe that the changes have been so important that the 1980s should be seen as a watershed period in American political history as significant as the 1930s. Schwab argues here that politics and policy have not fundamentally changed in a conservative direction, but have actually moved in the opposite direction. This book is a timely and comprehensive analysis of the Reagan years, of interest to all readers interested in politics and national policy.

Examines the history and purpose of political rituals, discusses examples from Aztec cannibal rites to presidential inauguration, and argues that the use of ritual determines the success of political groups.

During the last two decades, the number of anthropologists conducting research in the Middle East has increased considerably. Together they have produced an abundance of valuable studies, often based on prolonged periods of ethnographic fieldwork. This bibliography offers a comprehensive survey of their results published between 1965 and 1987. It refers to studies published in English, French and German. Geographically, the bibliography covers the area from Mauritania in the West to Afghanistan in the East, and from Turkey in the North to the Arab Peninsula and Northern Sudan in the South. The majority of studies inserted has been written by anthropologists. Besides, a considerable number of studies related to anthropology, but published by non-anthropologists, has been integrated as well. The majority of the monographs and volumes has been annotated.