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Political Legitimacy in Israel: How Important Is the State?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2009
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Without knowing its exact dimensions, political scientists have taken government to be the primary unit for the study of political behavior. No matter how far modern analysis appears to be from the formalism embodied in mere descriptions of government, political science still assumes that the institutions of government form the major system within which political activity is embedded.1 Government is understood not simply as the organization ordering political activity, but also as the foundation of the moral community within which people live. Government not only symbolizes but also defines appropriate political behavior, proper political associations, and, of course, legality and illegality. Government is thought to define right by virtue of its possession of legitimacy, a power that holds people together through their adherence to a public morality supposedly articulated and certified through the government.2 Political scientists attribute legitimacy to governments when it appears that the community over which such governments rule is cohesive. The legitimacy of government is understood as an isomorphism of the coherence of the political community.
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References
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