Issues in Israeli Politics A Comparative Perspective文档.pdfVIP

1 Issues in Israeli Politics: A Comparative Perspective Dr. Gideon Rahat The major goal of this course is to enable students to look “inside” Israeli politics, making it understandable through the use of comparative tools. Among the questions that will be addressed are: how does a state come into being? How did the Zionist movement succeed in establishing a strong state? How and why are religious, ethnic and other social cleavages pronounced in Israeli politics? What are the major characteristics of Israeli political institutions? How can we understand the way that decisions are made in the context of an institutional setting that is (or at least was) so different from the US setting (parliamentary vs. presidential regime, proportional representation vs. majoritarian electoral system, unitary vs. federal state)? What happens to a regime that was designed according to the European “Continental” structure when it tries to “Americanize” some of its parts? These topics and other selected issues in Israeli politics will be analyzed using the comparative approach (historical, one-case and cross-national perspectives). The course will be “comparative” in two senses. First, it will present an analysis of aspects of Israeli politics and government using comparative tools: concepts, theories, models, units of analysis (the single case study approach). It will also analyze the development of these aspects from a historical comparative perspective. Second, the Israeli cases will be compared to other cases. Lectures proceed from the assumption that all students have read the assigned material. 2 Grades: There will be a mid-term (25% of the grade) and a take-home exam (75% of the grade) or an optional essay. Course Textbooks Asher Arian. Politics in Israel: The Second Republic. 2nd Edi