Etzioni, Amitai Werner
ETZIONI, AMITAI WERNER
ETZIONI, AMITAI WERNER (1929– ), sociologist. Etzioni was born in Cologne, West Germany, but immigrated at an early age to Ereẓ Israel, studying at the Hebrew University and later at the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in sociology in 1958. He was on the faculty of Columbia University from 1958, and chairman of the department of sociology from 1969. From 1979 to 1980 he served as senior adviser to the White House and in the latter year was University Professor at George Washington University. In 1987–89, he served as the Thomas Henry Carroll Ford Foundation Professor at the Harvard Business School. In 1989–90 he was the founding president of the International Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, and in 1990 he founded the Communitarian Network, a nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to shoring up the moral, social, and political foundations of society. He was the editor of The Responsive Community: Rights and Responsibilities, the organization's quarterly journal, from 1991 to 2004. Etzioni also served as the president of the American Sociological Association in 1994–95. His primary areas of interest are political sociology and organizational analysis. Etzioni is a member of the Science Information Council of the National Science Foundation and a member of the Social Problems Research Committee of the National Institute of Mental Health, as well as a consultant to many organizations, including the President's Advisory Committee on Campus Unrest and Change.
He contributed over 80 articles to various professional journals and books and wrote numerous books, of which the most important is The Active Society: A Theory of Societal andPolitical Processes (1968). Among the others are A Diary of a Commando Soldier (1952), The Moon-Doogle: Domestic and International Implications of the Space Race (1964), Political Unification: A Comparative Study of Leaders and Forces (1965), Demonstration Democracy (1971), The Moral Dimension: Toward a New Economics (1988), The Spirit of Community (1993), The New Golden Rule (1996), The Limits of Privacy (1999), The Monochrome Society (2001), My Brother's Keeper: A Memoir and a Message (2003), and From Empire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations (2004).
Etzioni has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the William Mosher Award for the most distinguished academic article in the Public Administration Review in 1967. In 2001 he was named one of the top 100 American intellectuals. At the same year he was awarded the John P. Mc-Govern Award in Behavioral Sciences as well as the Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was also the recipient of the Seventh James Wilbur Award for Extraordinary Contributions to the Appreciation and Advancement of Human Values by the Conference on Value Inquiry as well as the Sociological Practice Association's Outstanding Contribution Award.
[Jacob Jay Lindenthal]