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Recent historical studies on the organizations of German expellees and their influence on West German political culture highlight the insincere attitude and deception by the whole West German political establishment toward the expellee politicians and activists and their cause. One study in this field is Matthias Stickler's important book "Ostdeutsch heißt Gesamtdeutsch," and a more recent one by Manfred Kittel, Vertreibung der Vertriebenen?, takes Stickler's thesis even further. It creates the impression that the expellee organizations, highly dependent on the government for financial and political support, had no option in this matter and were even helpless in that they had to accept the noncommittal rhetoric and the West German government's unwillingness to obligate West Germany for their cause. In this article, I probe this portrayal of the expellee politicians and activists as objects rather than subjects of German politics by inquiring into the political and public relations activities of the German Sudeten Council (Sudetendeutscher Rat) in the field of foreign policy during and around the tenure of Hans-Christoph Seebohm as the leader (Sprecher) of the German Sudeten Expellee Homeland Society (Landsmannschaft) (1959–1967). The Sudeten Council is a non-party association; one half of its members are elected by the federal assembly of the German Sudeten Landsmannschaft and the other half by the political parties of the Bundestag. As well as being a politician of the expellee organization, Hans-Christoph Seebohm pursued the longest political career in the German federal cabinet—seventeen years. He served as Minister of Transportation and Mail of the Federal Republic from 1949 to 1966 under Chancellors Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard. To date, no monographic work has been written about Seebohm.

The idea of the nation-state is in a grip of two pictures: first, the nation as an extended family; and second, its territory as home. The nation as an extended family is a metaphor for an ethnic nation, whereas a civic nation is guided by a different picture, by the metaphor of contract. Isaiah Berlin's own thoughts on nationalism, and in particular on Zionism, were, I contend, strongly influenced by the two pictures of family and home. More important, Berlin's core idea of psychological freedom, as distinct from political liberty, is coupled with the idea of the homeland as home.

Explores Berlin's thinking on Zionism, which, it is argued, is influenced by the idea of nation as extended family & its territory as home, & his notion of psychological freedom, which is tied to the idea of homeland as home. It is noted that Berlin shifted away from "sense-centered" to "sensibility-centered" philosophy. Attention is then given to the impact of the term "national home" on the Zionist movement (& Berlin); Berlin's interpretation of Johann Gottfried Herder's notion of "feeling at home"; the meaning of home in terms of the kind of freedom to be found there; the idea of the uncanny, particularly Leo Pinsker's view; a kind of self-consciousness that is bad for human freedom; & social anxiety as a plight of Jews in exile. D. Edelman

In the gloomy days after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, a delegation of intellectuals from the United States came to Jerusalem. There were no visitors in Israel at the time, and they were perhaps the first to arrive. It was after the war and just before the elections. I was on the slate of a leftist party called Moked. It was a tiny party. We knew almost all our voters by name. The quality of the supporters was never in doubt-it was the party of the left intelligentsia-but the numbers were very much in doubt.

A discussion of sectarianism in politics begins with a look at the dual view of politics as economics (capitalism) & politics as religion. It is argued that typically people see both of these pictures of politics; however, sectarianism is identified as that condition when one sees only the religious view. Sectarianism is seen as a mode of operation & a state of mind centered on a negative attitude toward compromise that underpins certain characteristics: (1) a gap between a lack of numbers & size of ambitions, (2) the narcissism of small differences, (3) Manichaeism, & (4) obsession with ritual purity. A distinction is made between sectarianism & sectorialism, & the link between sectarianism & civil war is addressed, along with Israeli concerns regarding the prospect of "fraternal war" should a compromise with the Palestinians be reached. Attention is then given to two key questions: (A) Can a social democrat be sectarian? (B) Can sectarianism exist in a social democracy? It is concluded that while sectorialism is no longer an option for social democracy, sectarianism is totally incompatible with it. D. Edelman

The author puts forward a moderate version of political and moral theology, in which authority and sovereignty have content which is independent of religious theological frame, yet these notions are in the grip of a theological picture of the world. To be in a grip of a picture is to confuse a model of reality with reality without being aware of it. So what the author does is to explore an idea of authority as if depicted by a religious picture. Indeed, it is a picture not the picture. It is the picture of God as the supreme decision maker without Him being a deliberator. The author calls it the decisionist picture of God. It is the genealogy of authority that he is interested in. He advances his genealogy into the idea of authority in three stages: First, dealing with the authority of God. Second, the authority of the messengers of the word of God. Third, dealing with the authority of the word of God, namely with the authority of the scriptures. ; El autor defiende una versión moderada de la teología política y moral. En su opinión, la autoridad y la soberanía tienen un contenido independiente del marco religioso teológico, aunque estos conceptos encajen en una imagen teológica del mundo. Encajar en una imagen es confundir un modelo de realidad con la propia realidad, sin ser consciente de ello. Por tanto, lo que se plantea hacer el autor es analizar una idea de la autoridad como si estuviera representada por una imagen religiosa. Se trata ciertamente de una imagen, no de la imagen. Es la imagen de Dios como el ser supremo que toma decisiones sin que Él sea el deliberador. El autor la denomina una imagen decisionista de Dios. Es la genealogía de la autoridad la que capta su interés. Avanza su genealogía sobre la idea de la autoridad en tres fases. Primero, trata de la autoridad de Dios. Segundo, de la autoridad de los mensajeros de la palabra de Dios. Finalmente, en tercer lugar, trata de la autoridad de la palabra de Dios, concretamente de la autoridad de las Escrituras.