SASE Mourns the Passing of Amitai Etzioni

SASE mourns the passing of its founder, Amitai Etzioni. He was the driving force, in every respect, behind this organization in its early years.

Amitai Etzioni founded SASE in 1989, just a year after he published The Moral Dimension: Toward A New Economics. This book was a major foundational text for socio-economics, and for SASE specifically, and on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of its publication, it was featured in a review symposium in the Socio-Economic Review, with texts by Jens Beckert, Bettina Hollstein, Edward Lehman, and David Marsden, and a response by Amitai Etzioni. This review symposium can be found here. 

Amitai Etzioni retired from public life in 2022, bidding farewell via The Communitarian Observer, published by the institute he founded, the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies at George Washington University. He shared his personal account of the trials he underwent as an activist professor and a video in which he gives a concise overview of his life story.

In the context of his retirement, Prof. Etzioni also took steps to ensure the future of SASE with a very generous donation to the organization. SASE is deeply indebted to Prof. Etzioni’s energy and generosity, both for the impetus of creating the organization in the first place, and for his timely donation to help the organization move confidently into the future.

Amitai Etzioni’s work has inspired thousands over the years, both personally and professionally. SASE expresses its deepest gratitude for the prodigious verve and intellect he devoted to our organization. May he rest in peace.

For SASE’s 35th annual conference, which will be held in Limerick from 27-29 June 2024, a presidential panel will be organized on Amitai Etzioni’s work.

Obituaries of Amitai Etzioni have been published by the Washington Post and the New York Times.