This week, as we mentioned on Monday, we’re looking at democracy from two different perspectives, through the eyes of two different scholars. One is an Israeli, while one is an American who often teaches in Israel. One studies Israel, while the other studies Russia and the United States. But the cracks in democracy to which they each point are chillingly similar. We hope that by hearing them both in the same week, our readers and listeners will find themselves musing not just on what is happening in Israel, but on how what is happening in Israel is a mirror of much of the West.
On Monday, we heard from Professor Yaniv Roznai. Today, we learn from Professor Jeffrey Kopstein.
When I glance up at the shelve of books immediately above my desk, of which these are a small smattering, two things become clear:
First, many of us understand that something profound—and disturbing—is happening to the ways in which our countries are governed.
Second, we’re not entirely sure what that “something” is.
Another volume recently got added to that ever-expanding shelf of “what the hell is really going on?” books, and I thought it was extraordinary.
In The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers Our Future, Stephen Hanson and Jeffrey Kopstein argue that what we should worry might replace democracy is not “authoritarianism”, but rather, something they call “patrimonialism.”
Their book is largely about Putin’s Russia and Trump’s United States, but Israel and Netanyahu also figure. As I read the book, it struck me that Hanson and Kopstein’s thesis is perhaps the best explanation I’ve read so far of the reasons and coherence behind what we’re witnessing in Israel.
I reached out to Professor Kopstein, who in addition to his position at the University of California has had a long relationship with Hebrew University in Jerusalem, as well, and asked him to talk us through their thesis.
One we hear him, a lot—including about the United States and Israel, but really about much more—begins to make a lot of sense. It might not make us happy, but it will certainly leave us with a better understanding of the changes all of our countries are experiencing, and why.
Jeffrey Kopstein is Dean’s Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Irvine.
In his research, Professor Kopstein focuses on interethnic violence, voting patterns of minority groups, antisemitism, and anti-liberal tendencies in civil society. These interests are central topics in his latest books, Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2018), Politics, Memory, Violence: The New Social Science of the Holocaust (Cornell University Press, 2023), and The Assault on the State: How the Global Attack on Modern Government Endangers our Future (Polity, 2024).
Professor Kopstein’s writings also appear in outlets like The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Globe and Mail, and The Washington Post.
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