Suchergebnisse

This survey of the composition of the first 4 legislatures of Israel, between 1949 & 1960, each with 120 members, describes their election, under Proportional Representation, as depending mainly on the place assigned to each candidate on the list by the respective party headquarters. The author sees it as roughly equivalent to the placing of a candidate under the constituency system in a' safe,' ' doubtful' or 'hopeless' district. Though this gives the entrenched leaders an extra chance, there is considerable turn-over. Of the members of the 4th Knesset, elected in 1959, 30% were newly elected, another 30% had served in some previous legislature, while 40% were old-timers serving uninterruptedly since 1949. Freshmen were strongest in Mapai (43%), with General Zionists in 2nd place (38%) & Communists last (0%). The occup'al pattern of Israeli parliamentarians, as reported by themselves, stresses various outside occup's, but an independent survey conducted by the author indicates that fully 50% of the members are professional politicians shifted by their parties in various positions in & out of the Knesset. The age-pattern rises guadually from an mean/average of 47.9 yrs in the 1st to 52.4 yrs in the 4th Knesset. Educ'al standards vary by party rather than by legislature, with about 45% having completed an academic educ. The 3 largest professional groups are lawyers, teachers, & soc workers, with writers & journalists about 10% each. F-members vary in number between 10 & 13 (out of 120). Gradually, the number of Israel-born members grows (13-20-18-23), as does that of members from oriental countries (2-3-5-9), while Eastern Europe recedes very slowly from its dominant position (86-84-83-77). A review of 'the Knesset member in action' & the division of his time & interests in & out of the Legislature, including his fence-mending activities, concludes the article. AA.

However careful one ought to be not to indulge in exaggerated conceptualism—an approach which easily degenerates into mere terminological exercise—a number of political terms in constant use have meanings which call for clarification. The purpose of this paper is to draw attention to two such terms: election and appointment. We use them regularly in teaching, observation and summing-up of institutions as if they were antonyms, without really bothering to determine wherein the supposed antithesis lies. Of course, neither term denotes an a priori category; both are names for historically evolved procedures, with many variations resulting from attempts to adjust them to preconceived ideas or to environmental factors. But even with full allowance for these variations, and with due regard for every-day common usage, certain discrepancies remain in our use of them which make for unclear thinking.To give a few instances: a chairman of a company (in the United States, the chairman of the board) is "elected" by the board's members. The same group of persons, sitting in the same capacity, may go through exactly the same motions when selecting a branch manager, and yet we think of him as "appointed." And is the company's managing director (in American parlance, the corporation president) "appointed" or "elected"? Or to turn to the field which is nearer to reader and writer alike, the field of assigning people to functions of a public, more particularly of a political, nature: is a cabinet in France under the fourth Republic or in Israel "elected" because it does not assume its functions unless and until the legislature has confirmed it by vote? Is a non-political public office to be considered "elective," if the assignment of the office-holder is made in the final count by a group of persons deciding by unanimous concurrence or by vote? No one will question this statement in the case of judges elected by popular vote; but what about certain judges as well as the General commanding-in-chief in Switzerland, who are "elected" by the Swiss Federal Assembly? And what about civil servants or holders of other public offices whose selection was decided upon, in whole or in part, by a selection board or by some similar collective group? Somehow we think of such office-holders as appointive, despite the procedure of election which took place in their cases.

Paper prepared for delivery before the International political science association, Stockholm, Sweden, Aug., 1955.