The Dual Role of Serving Elites in Times of Crisis and Conflict

• In Event: Israeli Civil Society during Crises and Wars

Abstract

The year 2023 was particularly dramatic in Israel. It started with illiberal constitutional change efforts by the new right-wing government and concluded with a brutal attack by Hamas terrorists and the subsequent war. Both occurrences galvanized a massive surge of civil society activism. The first was an unprecedented mass protest that impeded the government’s undemocratic legislation. The second was a large-scale aid response providing services and goods that supplanted the failed governmental disaster response. The paper analyzes the groups and organizations that transitioned overnight from protest to disaster aid. While protest and aid are two known roles played by civil society in general, such a transition from protest to aid within the same organization is practically unheard of.

The paper analyzes eighteen (18) interviews of leading members of prominent organizations that were active in both phases, exploring their participants, forms of organizing, activities, ideologies, and interconnections, and focusing on the transition.
Thematic analysis of the interviews revealed two fascinating processes. The first is the emergence of a new serving elite, liberal in orientation, aimed at protecting Israel’s democratic regime and its functioning during a crisis. The second is the emergence of a new coordinated yet decentralized mode of civic action – entrepreneurial activism – grounded on existing social, professional, and military networks, enabled by an empowering leadership, and facilitated by organizational and inter-organizational substructure. These processes are deeply embedded in Israel’s social, political, and cultural landscapes, changing elites and power relations, and Israel’s culture of entrepreneurship.

References
Nadel, S. F. (1956). The Concept of Social Elites, International Social Science Bulletin 8 (3), 413-424

Kabalo, P. (2020). Israeli Community Action: Living Through the War of Independence. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Authors

• Benjamin Gidron, Ben Gurion University of the Negev

• Hagai Katz, Ben Gurion University of the Negev