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CHAPTERS Most of the political sociologists in Israel, when studying their own society, ignore the rich tradition of political sociology which deals with informal political structures , with the covert activities of elites, and with the oligarchies that control ostensibly democratic political parties. They pay little attention to the political activity that goes on in informal meetings and in secret consultations, the covert operations of pressure groups, or the system of interpersonal relations of politicians and its influence on their policies. The scholars prefer to discuss the formal structure of politics: official agreements between parties , party platforms and public statements of leaders, and public opinion surveys. This is not a lack of sophistication on their part, but an unwillingness to deal with the shadowy side of politics. -Yonathan Shapiro "The Shadowy Side of Politics" Elitism The core assumption of functionalist sociology is that society is an ordered and consensual system structured to function best in the interest of maintaining itself vis-a-vis its environment. From this perspective Israeli society was interpreted as a highly coordinated and adaptive social system based on value consensus guided by the nation-building elite of the Labor Movement. This interpretation overlooks, if not ignores altogether , the role of power, domination, and coercion in social affairs. The core assumption of conflict sociology, to put it crudely, is the mirror image offunctionalist sociology. It asserts that society is a hierarchical structure in which one group (or organization) exercises power and authority over another (or others) in order to maintain or advance its privileged position. Consequently society is inherently in a state of conflict of interests , be it overt or covert. A comprehensive conflict interpretation of 69 70 Chapter 5 Israel has been elaborated since the early 1970s by sociologist Y _______ - _ ~ formation of the Israeli polity Shapiro suggests a causal flow-depicted in Table S.l-that is distinctly antithetical to the functionalist one. The linchpin of this view is that "in the beginning there was the organization " or, put another way, that "in the modern world the organization rules. He who organizes society dominates it" (Y Shapiro, 1977:59, 128). Political-organizational power is the locomotive of the whole social process that trails behind it: The successful formation of a centralized and efficient organization which controls economic resources enabled the founders of Ahdut Haavoda [the first influential labor party1to disseminate successfully their ideas and make them dominant in the Hebrew community. The key to their organizational success, which was a necessary precondition to their cultural-ideological domination in the community, was the power of the political organization they established and its domination over the economic institutions of the I listadmt and the agricultural settlement movement, the employment offices, the trade unions and the welfare institutions. (Y. Shapiro. 1975:2(2) Much can be learned of the Israeli elite as interpreted by Shapiro by noticing the dissimilarity between it and the American elite as interpreted by Mills. In the former case the m~jor institutional site of the elite is a political party, in a way that takes after the structure of the Soviet elite, while in the United States parties are largely fragmented, diffused, and belong to the second, intermediary, ring of power rather than to the primary one. The resemblance of the Israeli elite to the Soviet elite is intrinsic to Shapiro's analysis. Rather than consider the Israeli regime a Western democracy, as by the functionalists do, Shapiro highlights its ancestry in, and debt to, Eastern party autocracies. The m~jor common ingredients 76 Chapter:1 are the buildup of power by means of a disciplined centralized organization and the subordination of the economy to political control. The Israeli analogue of the Soviet Communist Party is obviously Ahdut Haa1loda, which was established in 1919, transformed to Mapai in 1930, and became the Israeli Labor Party in 1968. Unlike the functionalists who view universal social requisites and evolutionary imperatives as the driving forces ofisracli society, Shapiro places the onus on particular group interests and oligarchic tendencies. In his interpretation the founders and leaders of the Labor Movement brought with them from Eastern Europe the socialist political culture which is focused upon "organization and discipline rather than a world-view" (Y Shapiro, 1975:29). Following his assumptions Shapiro considers political moves consequences of strategic interests rather than of normative commitments (a case in point is the dispute between Gdud Haavoda and the Histadrut, Y Shapiro 1975:85; also see 153-4,156,177). He narrates...

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