Daniel J. Elazar - Political Theories

Political Theories

Elazar authored a four part series on the idea of covenant which featured: Covenant and Civil Society: The Constitutional Matrix of Modern Democracy, Covenant and Constitutionalism: The Great Frontier and the Matrix of Federal Democracy, Covenant and Commonwealth: From Christian Separation through the Protestant Reformation, and Covenant and Polity in Biblical Israel: Biblical Foundations & Jewish Expressions.

• Covenant and Civil Society: The settlement of new worlds by bearers of the covenant tradition in politics gave those settlers an unparalleled opportunity to build societies on the covenantal model or as close to it as they could.

• Covenant and Constitutionalism: "The great frontier" that began at the end of the 15th century, whereby Europe embarked on an expansion that made Europeans and their descendants the rulers of the world for 500 years, was seen as a great opportunity for beginning again, launching an unprecedented movement of migration and colonization.

• Covenant and Commonwealth: The history of the covenant tradition in the Western world has, in the course of two thousand years, undergone three separations, each of which has established a stream of covenant tradition of its own: (1) the separation between Judaism and Christianity; (2) the separation between Christianity and its Reformed wing; and (3) the separation between Jewish and Christian covenantalists and believers in a secular compact.

• Covenant and Polity: The covenants of the Bible are the founding covenants of Western civilization. They have their beginnings in the need to establish clear and binding relationships between God and humans and among humans, relationships which must be understood as being political far more than theological in character, designed to establish lines of authority, distributions of power, bodies politic, and systems of law.

Elazar wrote extensively about the tradition of politics in Jewish scripture and thinking. His works on the subject include: Kinship and Consent: The Jewish Political Tradition and Its Contemporary Uses, Authority, Power and Leadership in the Jewish Polity: Cases and Issues, and Morality and Power: Contemporary Jewish Views.

• Kinship and Consent: The exploration of the Jewish political tradition is predicated on the recognition of the Jews as a separate people, not merely a religion or a set of moral principles growing out of a religion. The exploration of the Jewish political tradition, then, is an exploration of how the Jews as a people managed to maintain their polity over centuries of independence, exile and dispersion, and how they animated that polity by communicating their own expressions of political culture and modes of political behavior.

• Authority, Power and Leadership in the Jewish Polity: Many Jews are finding that they express themselves Jewishly through political means, if at all, whether that entails support of Israel or other causes which then become "Jewish" causes, or through working within the political and communal organizations of the Jewish people, which increasingly are perceived for what they are, namely, means of organizing power.

• Morality and Power: In September 1988, as the intifada approached the end of its first year, a distinguished group of leaders in academic and public affairs in Israel and the diaspora was invited to participate in a symposium on the problems of relating morality and power in contemporary statecraft.

The Elazar typology of Jewish communal involvement is a typology laid out in Community and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of American Jewry. It categorizes the degree of involvement American Jews have in the Jewish community:

• Integral Jews make up 10-13 percent. For these, Jewishness is a central focus of life and is passed through generations. Specifically, integral Jews may express their Jewishness "through traditional religion, ethnic nationalism or intensive involvement in Jewish affairs."
• Participants make up 12-15 percent. For this group, Judaism is a "major avocational interest"; they "take part in Jewish life in a regular way but whose rhythm of life follows larger society." Participants are likely to regularly attend synagogue and to be involved in different organizations, examples including participating in adult education, "fundraising for Jewish causes," or lobbying for Israel.
• Affiliates make up 30-33 percent. These are "members of Jewish organizations but not particularly active"; they may be "affiliated with synagogues but irregular attenders."
• Contributors and Consumers make up another 25-33 percent. They "periodically use the services of Jewish organizations as needed," and keep a Jewish identity but remain "minimally associated." They may on occasion contribute financially to Jewish organizations.
• Peripherals make up 25 percent. These are "recognizably Jewish but wholly uninvolved in Jewish life"; they have "no particular desire to use Jewish institutions or contribute to organizations"
• Repudiators and Converts-Out make up 2-7 percent. This group includes those who have converted to another religion and who "actively deny Jewishness."