Authority without Sovereignty: The Case of the National Centre of the Jewish Community in Palestine

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Abstract
THE PROCESS WHICH CHARACTERIZED THE POLITICAL SYSTEM OF THE Jewish community in Palestine was a process of the formation of a non-sovereign political centre which progressively increased its authority through the exercise of control over the mobilization and distribution of resources. The bearer of this process was a power conscious elite – oriented on the formation of an institutionalized national centre. The mobilization of resources outside of the system enabled this centre to allocate more resources than it had to extract from its periphery. Thus, a dynamic equilibrium was created in which progressively increasing demands were balanced by an increased mobilization of resources. The operation of the system was dependent upon a division of functions between an evolving coalitionary national centre and various particularistic sub-centres. The lack of sovereignty paradoxically contributed to the development of ‘rules of the game’ which made the resolution of conflicts possible within a quasi-parliamentary framework.

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