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Daniel J. Elazar

Born	(1934-08-25)August 25, 1934 Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.
Died	December 2, 1999(1999-12-02) (aged 65) Jerusalem
Alma mater	University of Chicago
Occupation	Political scientist
Known for	Founder of Center for the Study of Federalism and founder and president of Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Daniel Judah Elazar (August 25, 1934 – December 2, 1999) was a political scientist known for his seminal studies of political culture of the US states. He was professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and Temple University in Pennsylvania, and director of the Center for the Study of Federalism at Temple University and the founder and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Biography

Elazar was born in Minneapolis in 1934. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago where he studied under renowned federalism scholar Morton Grodzins. He maintained residences in Philadelphia and Jerusalem. He was married to Harriet, with whom he had three children.

Academic career

Elazar was a political scientist and specialist in the study of federalism, political culture, the Jewish political tradition, and founder and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs think tank. He was Professor of Political Science at Temple University in Philadelphia, where he founded and directed the Center for the Study of Federalism. He held the Senator N.M. Paterson Professorship in Intergovernmental Relations at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, heading its Institute for Local Government. In 1986, President Reagan appointed him a citizen member of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, the major intergovernmental agency dealing with federalism issues. He was appointed for a second term in 1988 and a third in 1991.

Elazar was the author or editor of more than 60 books and many other publications including a 4-volume study of the Covenant Tradition in Politics, as well as Community and Polity, The Jewish Polity, and People and Polity, a trilogy on Jewish political and community organization from earliest times to the present. He also founded and edited the scholarly journal Jewish Political Studies Review. His books in the area of federalism include The American Partnership (1962); American Federalism: A View from the States (1966); The American Mosaic (1994); and Exploring Federalism (1987). He was also the author of a multi-generational study of the development of civil community in midwestern cities. The research produced Cities of the Prairie (1970), Cities of the Prairie Revisited (1986) and Cities of the Prairie: Opening Cybernetic Frontiers (2004). He was also the founder and editor of Publius, the Journal of Federalism.

Elazar was recognized as an expert on Jewish community organization worldwide, on the Jewish political tradition, and on Israel's government and politics. He was a consultant to the Israeli government, the Jewish Agency, the World Zionist Organization, the city of Jerusalem, and to most major Jewish organizations in the United States and in Canada, Europe, South Africa and Australia. He took a leadership role in numerous local and national Jewish organizations. He was President of the American Sephardi Federation, and served on the International Council of Yad Vashem.

Elazar was twice a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow at the Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, a Fulbright Senior Lecturer, and received grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the Earhart and Ford Foundations, the Huntington Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Science Foundation. He served as consultant to many federal, state and local agencies, including the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human Services, and Housing and Urban Development, the National Governors' Association, the Education Commission of the States, and the Pennsylvania Science and Technology Commission, as well as to the governments of Israel, Canada, Cyprus, Italy, South Africa, and Spain.

Political theories

Elazar authored a four-volume comprehensive work on the idea of covenant called The Covenant Tradition in Politics and 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.

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. His theories on the political subcultures in the American states, articulated in American Federalism, A View From the States have been influential and remains relevant among scholars of American politics. Elazar argues that there are three dominant political subcultures in the American states: moralistic (government viewed as egalitarian institution charged with pursuing the common good), traditionalistic (government viewed a hierarchical institution charged with protecting an elite-centered status quo), and individualistic (government viewed as minimalist institution charged with protecting the functionality of the marketplace but is otherwise not active). Elazar's theory is still routinely used as variable in academic research and is discussed in most textbooks on American state and local government.

Published works

The American Partnership: Intergovernmental Cooperation in the United States, 1962
American Federalism: A View from the States. 1966
The American System: A New View of Government in the United States, edited for Morton Grodzins, 1966
Cooperation and Conflict, Readings in American Federalism, Elazar as editor, 1969
The Politics of American Federalism, editor, 1969
Cities of the Prairie: The Metropolitan Frontier and American Politics, 1970
The Politics of Belleville, 1971
The Ecology of American Political Culture, editor with Joseph Zikmund II, 1975
Community and Polity: The Organizational Dynamics of American Jewry, 1976
A Classification System for Libraries of Judaica, with David H. Elazar, 1979
Self Rule/Shared Rule: Federal Solutions to the Middle East Conflict, editor, 1979
Federalism and Political Integration, editor, 1979
Republicanism, Representation and Consent: Views of the Founding Era, editor, 1979
Kinship and Consent: The Jewish Political Tradition and Its Contemporary Uses, editor, 1981
Governing Peoples and Territories, editor, 1982
Judea, Samaria, and Gaza: Views on the Present and Future, editor, 1982
State Constitutional Design in Federal Systems, editor with Stephen L. Schechter, 1982
Covenant, Polity and Constitutionalism, editor with John Kincaid, 1983
Jewish Communities in Frontier Societies, with Peter Medding, 1983
Kinship and Consent: The Jewish Political Tradition and Its Contemporary Uses, editor, 1983
From Autonomy to Shared Rule: Options for Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, editor, 1983
The Balkan Jewish Communities: Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Turkey, with Harriet Pass Friedenrich, Baruch Hazzan, and Adina Weiss Liberies, 1984
The Jewish Communities of Scandinavia: Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, with Adina Weiss Liberies and Simcha Werner, 1984
Understanding the Jewish Agency: A Handbook, editor with Alysa M. Dortort, 1984
The Jewish Polity: Jewish Political Organization From Biblical Times to the Present, with Stuart A. Cohen, 1985
The Covenant Connection: From Federal Theology to Modern Federalism, editor with John Kincaid, 2000

References

Boyer, William W.; Ratledge, Edward C. (2009). Delaware Politics and Government. University of Nebraska Press. p. xi. ISBN 978-0-8032-6220-1. LCCN 2008043540.
Inventory of Daniel J. Elazar's papers at the Minnesota Historical Society
Schechter, Stephen L. 1999. "In Memoriam: Daniel J. Elazar." Publius: The Journal of Federalism 29 (Autumn): 3–10.
Kincaid, John. 2000. "In Memoriam: Daniel J. Elazar." PS: Political Science & Politics 33 (1): 91–95.
Horowitz, Irving Louis. 2000. "Daniel J. Elazar and the Covenant Tradition in Politics." Publius: The Journal of Federalism 31 (Winter): 1–7.
ufl.edu Elazar's typology Archived 24 June 2004 at the Wayback Machine
Elazar, Daniel J, American Federalism: A View From the States (T.Y. Crowell).
Boeckelman, Keith (1991). "Political Culture and State Development Policy". Publius. 21 (2): 49–62. ISSN 0048-5950.
Laitin, David D.; Wildavsky, Aaron (1988). "Political Culture and Political Preferences". The American Political Science Review. 82 (2): 589–597. doi:10.2307/1957403. ISSN 0003-0554.
Lowery, David; Sigelman, Lee (1982). "Political Culture and State Public Policy: The Missing Link". The Western Political Quarterly. 35 (3): 376–384. doi:10.2307/447552. ISSN 0043-4078.

External links

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