Short Essay:
Please elaborate on the relationship between the media and the state.
Political Communication in Israel
The relationship between the media and state in the Western world has becomes increasingly more complex because of the process of “medialization.” [1] This process describes how the media has changed by gaining both greater independence from and greater influence upon the political system of the time, moving from periods of greater governmental control over media to freer privatized media following their own agenda as well as shifting within theoretical research frameworks and paradigms. [2] This process has arisen because of the assumed role of the media as sole (or most important) intermediary between the state (i.e., the government, politicians, etc) and the public at large, and as the key for keeping the state under public accountability. [3] This has allowed for new tools, resources and powers for the media to wield to have greater impact on the world of politics and vice versa. It has also opened the door for some new processes that have colored both the media and politics.
The tools and resources that the media has to pull from are varied; however theoretically, they each can produce a measurable affect on the community and public at large. One of these tools is the use of framing- the process whereby the media outlet determines what will be covered as well as how it will be covered. How the media chooses to portray an event can have large influence on how it is received and perceived by the audience. [4] This brings up many concerns, such as what general frame to choose (thematic or hard vs episodic or soft with general news stories, as well as issue frames vs game frames within the political system framework). [5] This framing can be seen as a function of political bias within the media organizations. The media can use their control of media access and the valence (degree of positive and negative coverage) to in part determine how a specific event or person is considered. An example of the effect of framing can be seen in the various frames employed by differing news agencies during Operation Cast Lead: portraying Israel as an aggressor, focusing on the plight of the Gaza’s inhabitants, etc. Different frames emphasized different aspects of the conflict leading the audiences of the respective media to differing conclusions.
Another theoretical tool of the media in the political system is the use of agenda setting (“The media influence public opinion by emphasizing certain issues over others.” [6]) and priming. “The priming hypothesis states that the media agenda affects the criteria people use to evaluate the performance of political actors.” [7] This allows the media to in some ways directly affect the electoral and other political processes by introducing a saliency effect to the public [8]- by having both easily accessed media and “by emphasizing certain issues and not others, the media may thus influence electoral results, because it appears that people tend to vote for parties that ‘own’ the issues primed by the media.” [9] [10] The use of affective attributes in the coverage can add another element of influence for the media. [11] This is seen effectively by observing the compelling arguments principle (“the media influence affective priming through the affective compelling arguments effect, in which they attach an evaluative tone…to objects or issues.” [12]) and/or by negativity bias in which people pay more attention to negative news items than to positive. [13][14] These effects again can be illustrated by political and media reactions during Operation Cast Lead. As public opinion was manipulated by the stories regarding the operation, one could witness changes in political action towards the issue (e.g. international calls for the denouncing of Israel, the Goldstone report, etc).
While the media’s tools and resources for interacting with and influencing the workings of the state are powerful, the state is not left without its own means of influencing the media and using the media’s tools as its own. The politicians and the state can easily take advantage of the biases and tools of the media if they understand those tools. By understanding the ideas of personal political bias and newsworthiness bias, a politician can theoretically craft their personal appeal and character to the desires of the public. As well, once a politician has reached office, he or she gains an advantage because of their position that will guarantee them greater news coverage than any opponents who are not already in the public’s eye. In election periods, those in the front of the polls can count on receiving more coverage as well because of the “horse-race bias” (the fact that the poll leaders automatically receive greater access to media). This was attempted during Operation Cast Lead, as it would seem that political leaders (e.g. Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, etc.) during the operation strove to use their status as leaders of the “successful” operation to enhance their political appeal in the upcoming election.
Politicians and government officials can also be aware of the Index Hypothesis and the strength that its theoretical model can lend to their political atmosphere. The index hypothesis states “mass media news professionals…tend to ‘index’ the range of voices and viewpoints in both news and editorials according to the range of views expressed in mainstream government debate about a given topic.” [15] Thus, governments that can tightly control the internal amount of discussion and debate about policies and actions can control the media’s influence and narrow its index. This was observed well in the Israeli media during Operation Cast Lead. With the government standing nearly unanimously in agreement about the scope and manner of the operation, there was hardly any divergence of opinion within the Israeli media and public at large.
Most of this discussion has emphasized the differing tools that the media and the state use to determine and shift their relationship. However one effect has been seen and theoretically projected to grow within both spheres: personalization. [16] Generally, this trend has been seen in three different areas: Institutional, Media and Politician Behavior. [17] Institutionally, personalization has been seen in that new modes, norms and formal institutions have emerged that emphasize the individual within the political system. Within the media, it has emerged that (according to some analysis) the media has begun to focus more on individuals. This of course follows after the decline in party politics. But as well, the media’s focus on politics as a game or “horse race” [18] with attendant game frames tends towards personalization. Similarly, other media actions, such as use of episodic/soft frames and particularly types of “infotainment,” [19] tend to push towards the personalization of politics. As well, politician behavior has tended away from party politics and toward personal activities in some countries.
[1] Stromback &Kaid, (2008), “A Framework for Comparing Election News Coverage Around the World,” in Stromback &Kaid (Eds.) Handbook of Election Coverage Around the World.
[2] See Sheufele, D. A. (1999), “Framing as a Theory of Media Effects.” Journal of Communication, 49, (1), 103-122 for an overview of the last century within communication paradigm research.
[3] Bennett, W. (1990) “Toward a Theory of Press-state Relations in the United States,” Journal of Communication, 40, 103-125.
[4] See Sheufele, D. A. (1999), “Framing as a Theory of Media Effects.” Journal of Communication, 49, (1), 103-122 for a broader theoretical discussion of differing types of frames and their effects.
[5] Sheafer, T., Weimann, G., and Tsfati, Y. (2008), “Campaigns in the Holy Land: the Content and Effects of Election News Coverage in Israel,” In Stromback, J. & L. L. Kaid (Eds.) Handbook of Election Coverage around the World. (pp. 209-225).
[6] Sheafer, et al. “Campaigns,” 217.
[7] Sheafer, et al. “Campaigns,” 218.
[8] Shamir, J. & Shamir, M. (2000) The Anatomy of Public Opinion. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press). 87.
[9] Sheafer, et al. “Campaigns,” 218
[10] For info concerning this affect in election processes, see Holbrook, (1996) Do Campaigns Matter? (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage).
[11] See Sheafer, T. (2007). “How to Evaluate it: The Role of Story Evaluative Tone in Agenda Setting and Priming.” Journal of Communication, 57 (1), 21-39.
[12] Sheafer, “Evaluate,” 26.
[13] It should be added that theoretically, this type of influence should be observed mainly among people lower in political information, while those with higher political information and knowledge should be less affected. See Franz & Ridout, (2007), “Does Political Advertising Persuade?” Political Behavior, 29(4), 465-492.
[14] Another interesting aspect to this is that voters can effectively be discouraged from voting by highly negative media during an election process. Se Ansolabehere, et al. (1997), “Does Attack Advertizing Demobilize the Electorate?” In Iyengar & Reeves (Eds.), Do the Media Govern? (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage). Chap. 25, pp. 195-207.
[15] Bennet, “Press-state Relations,” 106.
[16] Although it is debatable about how well this is truly borne out by statistics in an international scale, personalization has still been observed in many nations under many differing situations. See Rahat & Sheafer (2007) “The Personalization(s) of Politics: Israel 1949-2003,” Political Communication, 24 (1), 65-80. And Karvonen, (2007) “The Personalization of Politics: What does Research Tell us so far, and what further research is in order?” Paper for the 4th ECPR Conference, Pisa 6-8 Sept 2007.
[17] Rahat & Sheafer, “Personalization(s),” 68-69.
[18] Sheafer, et al. “Campaigns,” 209.
[19] See Baumgartner & Morris, (2006), “The Daily Show Effect,” American Political Research, 34, 341-367.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Affective Priming
Short Essay:
Please explain the idea of affective priming. What is its possible role in elections? Compare this concept with the framing effect.
Political Communication in Israel
Affective priming deals with the way people make judgments of their political leaders (and others) based on the issues that get prominent news coverage. Price and Tewksbury note that originally priming effects were studied in the realm of agenda setting. However, they also note that whereas agenda setting can affect what the audience find important, priming studies can “also affects public evaluations of political leaders. For example, at any particular point in time people may tend to evaluate the performance of the president based on those issues (e.g., the economy or foreign affairs) recently featured most prominently in the media.” [1] It seems that the reason this works is because people tend “to be miserly in expending cognitive effort when processing political information. Most use cognitive shortcuts and heuristics.” [2] People base their overall opinion of a political leader’s success simply on their actions/policies/activities in one area.
Sheafer takes it a little bit further by noting that once issues or events have been primed, people place an “affective attribute” on it. This is an evaluation of the issue at hand, which cannot be separated from the initial priming, thus rendering it affective priming. He says, “The media influence affective priming through the affective compelling arguments effect, in which they attach an evaluative tone (i.e., positive, negative or neutral) to objects or issues. In other words, the media help people in assigning attribute to these issues.” [3] This seems to give the media a powerful tool midway between the framing effect and simple priming.
The framing effect refers to the way that the media can determine how the object or issue is to be presented. Framing presents a way that journalists and the audience alike can respectively represent and comprehend the issues at hand. [4] The way journalists frame an issue is essentially assigning to it an affective attribution, be that negative, positive or neutral. “Framing focuses not on which topics or issues are selected for coverage by the news media, but instead on the particular ways those issues are presented, on the ways public problems are formulated for the media audience.” [5]
Affective priming can thus be a formidable tool to be used by the media to affect politics, especially in the context of elections. By recognizing which party “owns” which issue and affectively priming accordingly, a media outlet can perhaps influence the electoral process because “such affective attributes have political consequences, probably mainly through the process of voters’ attribution of responsibility to the incumbent party.” [6] Similarly, the theory “behind agenda setting and priming is the idea that story selection affects audience evaluations by influencing the likelihood that some issues rather than others will come to mind, thus affecting audience judgments of issue importance or approval of public actors.” [7] Thus, a media outlet can attempt to sway public opinion and judgment of a public figure or party. This could be fairly (or possibly even extremely) effective during a close election.
[1]Price, V. & Tewksbury, D. (1997). “New Values and Public Opinion: A Theoretical account of media priming and framing.” In Barnett, G. A. & Boster, F. J. (Eds.), Progress in Communication Sciences: Advances in Persuasion, Vol. 13. Connecticut and London: Abelx Publishing Corp. 181.
[2]IBID
[3]Sheafer, T. (2007). “How to Evaluate it: the Role of Story Evaluative Tone in Agenda Setting and Priming.” Journal of communication, 57 (1), 21-39.
[4]See Scheufele, D. A. (1999). “Framing as a Theory of Media Effects.” Journal of Communication, 49(1), 103-122.
[5]Price and Tewksbury, “New Values,” 184.
[6]Sheafer, “Evaluate,” 26.
[7]Price and Tewksbury, “New Values,” 184.
Please explain the idea of affective priming. What is its possible role in elections? Compare this concept with the framing effect.
Political Communication in Israel
Affective priming deals with the way people make judgments of their political leaders (and others) based on the issues that get prominent news coverage. Price and Tewksbury note that originally priming effects were studied in the realm of agenda setting. However, they also note that whereas agenda setting can affect what the audience find important, priming studies can “also affects public evaluations of political leaders. For example, at any particular point in time people may tend to evaluate the performance of the president based on those issues (e.g., the economy or foreign affairs) recently featured most prominently in the media.” [1] It seems that the reason this works is because people tend “to be miserly in expending cognitive effort when processing political information. Most use cognitive shortcuts and heuristics.” [2] People base their overall opinion of a political leader’s success simply on their actions/policies/activities in one area.
Sheafer takes it a little bit further by noting that once issues or events have been primed, people place an “affective attribute” on it. This is an evaluation of the issue at hand, which cannot be separated from the initial priming, thus rendering it affective priming. He says, “The media influence affective priming through the affective compelling arguments effect, in which they attach an evaluative tone (i.e., positive, negative or neutral) to objects or issues. In other words, the media help people in assigning attribute to these issues.” [3] This seems to give the media a powerful tool midway between the framing effect and simple priming.
The framing effect refers to the way that the media can determine how the object or issue is to be presented. Framing presents a way that journalists and the audience alike can respectively represent and comprehend the issues at hand. [4] The way journalists frame an issue is essentially assigning to it an affective attribution, be that negative, positive or neutral. “Framing focuses not on which topics or issues are selected for coverage by the news media, but instead on the particular ways those issues are presented, on the ways public problems are formulated for the media audience.” [5]
Affective priming can thus be a formidable tool to be used by the media to affect politics, especially in the context of elections. By recognizing which party “owns” which issue and affectively priming accordingly, a media outlet can perhaps influence the electoral process because “such affective attributes have political consequences, probably mainly through the process of voters’ attribution of responsibility to the incumbent party.” [6] Similarly, the theory “behind agenda setting and priming is the idea that story selection affects audience evaluations by influencing the likelihood that some issues rather than others will come to mind, thus affecting audience judgments of issue importance or approval of public actors.” [7] Thus, a media outlet can attempt to sway public opinion and judgment of a public figure or party. This could be fairly (or possibly even extremely) effective during a close election.
[1]Price, V. & Tewksbury, D. (1997). “New Values and Public Opinion: A Theoretical account of media priming and framing.” In Barnett, G. A. & Boster, F. J. (Eds.), Progress in Communication Sciences: Advances in Persuasion, Vol. 13. Connecticut and London: Abelx Publishing Corp. 181.
[2]IBID
[3]Sheafer, T. (2007). “How to Evaluate it: the Role of Story Evaluative Tone in Agenda Setting and Priming.” Journal of communication, 57 (1), 21-39.
[4]See Scheufele, D. A. (1999). “Framing as a Theory of Media Effects.” Journal of Communication, 49(1), 103-122.
[5]Price and Tewksbury, “New Values,” 184.
[6]Sheafer, “Evaluate,” 26.
[7]Price and Tewksbury, “New Values,” 184.
Consociational Democracy and Israel
Short Essay on this topic:
To what extent are the mechanisms of consociational democracy implemented in Israel? Does it enhance the stability and effectiveness of Israeli democracy?
Comparative Politics and Israel
Consociational democracy consists of a cooperative effort between elites of various pillars or communal groupings (usually delineated by religion, ideology or even ethnicity) within a society to create a plural and fair social atmosphere in order to establish stable democratic governance despite deep social cleavages.
Theoretically, this sort of democracy involves four different mechanisms which the elites of the communities agree to in order that the state have better capacity and respect for each of the distinct social groupings.
The four mechanisms of elite accommodation are:
• Executive power sharing (usually in the form of grand coalitions)
• Segmented autonomy (giving each minority group full self-rule within their community)
• Mutual veto (giving each minority power of veto over the government’s decisions)
• Proportionality (the distribution of resources reflects the population size of each group)
In Israel, only 2 of these 4 mechanisms are implemented by any means: executive power sharing and segmented autonomy.
Executive power sharing is exemplified in the Israeli polity by the extensive coalition building processes necessary to build a working and governable coalition within the Knesset. Almost any type of party (excluding racist and blatantly anti-state parties) can run in Knesset elections, which are proportionally representative by design in order to ensure that social groupings have representation through their preferred political party (religious, ethnic, right, left or any combination). These political parties, as elected officials and members of the Knesset, negotiate to form governmental coalitions to share executive power. These governing coalitions generally have their basis in the political bloc rather than by party, however it is not unprecedented for parties of opposing political blocs to form a working unity government. The unity governments of the 1980s provide very unique examples of executive power sharing based in political elite accommodation, however a more common example of executive power sharing is the plethora of middle parties, be they religious or otherwise, that represent differing segments of the population but actively take part in the countries governance by making coalition deals with either of the two major political blocs.
Segmented autonomy is seen within Israel most clearly along religious lines. In some regard, Israel has co-opted and adapted the Ottoman millet system of governance with regard to minorities. The Israeli system entitles religious minorities autonomy over their individual community’s affairs by granting them complete legal authority over personal and family status issues. This means that for each religious community within Israel there is an individualized legal system for issues such as marriage, inheritance, etc: the Jews decide for the Jews how these will work, the Christians decide for the Christians and the Muslims decide for the Muslims. Similarly, within the framework of education Israel has allowed for a degree of segmented autonomy as three distinct (possibly four, if private schools are counted as their own category) categories of education. There is a national education track, catering to secular, western ideals of education, a national religious track, which mixes secular learning with religious study, and a completely autonomous fully religious track which sets its own curriculum based on religious concerns to the exclusion of secular learning. This division of the education sphere allows for the Israeli minorities (in this case particularly Jewish orthodox and ultra-orthodox communities) to have complete control over their educational curricula.
An example of a mixture of both the executive power sharing the segmented autonomy is the Status Quo agreement. Informally established at the founding of the state, the agreement represents an accommodating compromise between religious and secular elites (particularly leaders of the religious establishment and Ben Gurion respectively). The agreement details the setting of certain standards and norms for the governing of religious and secular clashes within the public sphere. Specifically, it delineated issues such as where public transport would be allowed on the Sabbath, a promise of all government institutions adhering to Kashrut laws, and the Rabbinate’s jurisdiction over conversion and personal status issues within the state.
Mutual veto and proportional distribution of resources are not fully implemented within Israel. In no case are ethnic minorities, such as the Arab or religious minorities for example, given a powerful veto over government activities. They have recourse to the Supreme Court to call in question specific governmental actions, however no ability to veto policy or decisions. Resources within Israel are not distributed proportionally to the population size of the minority groups. Again, as only one example, Arab constituencies, which constitute nearly 20% of the country, do not receive a proportional amount of resources. They also do not have full representation in the Knesset according to their population size. Whereas this is probably due to voting patterns among Arabs, it still disqualifies Israel from attaining a fully proportional distribution of resources.
The full implementation of 2 of these 4 mechanisms does contribute to the stability and effectiveness of the Israeli democracy. The executive power sharing and segmented autonomy each provide a method of compromise in the governance of an extremely divided and fragmented society. The coalition governing allows different voices to be heard and compromises to be made which allow for stable democracy to be present ensuring the continuity of the state. The segmented autonomy allows for compromise and give-and-take on issues that otherwise would cause intractable conflict and possible governmental paralysis.
To what extent are the mechanisms of consociational democracy implemented in Israel? Does it enhance the stability and effectiveness of Israeli democracy?
Comparative Politics and Israel
Consociational democracy consists of a cooperative effort between elites of various pillars or communal groupings (usually delineated by religion, ideology or even ethnicity) within a society to create a plural and fair social atmosphere in order to establish stable democratic governance despite deep social cleavages.
Theoretically, this sort of democracy involves four different mechanisms which the elites of the communities agree to in order that the state have better capacity and respect for each of the distinct social groupings.
The four mechanisms of elite accommodation are:
• Executive power sharing (usually in the form of grand coalitions)
• Segmented autonomy (giving each minority group full self-rule within their community)
• Mutual veto (giving each minority power of veto over the government’s decisions)
• Proportionality (the distribution of resources reflects the population size of each group)
In Israel, only 2 of these 4 mechanisms are implemented by any means: executive power sharing and segmented autonomy.
Executive power sharing is exemplified in the Israeli polity by the extensive coalition building processes necessary to build a working and governable coalition within the Knesset. Almost any type of party (excluding racist and blatantly anti-state parties) can run in Knesset elections, which are proportionally representative by design in order to ensure that social groupings have representation through their preferred political party (religious, ethnic, right, left or any combination). These political parties, as elected officials and members of the Knesset, negotiate to form governmental coalitions to share executive power. These governing coalitions generally have their basis in the political bloc rather than by party, however it is not unprecedented for parties of opposing political blocs to form a working unity government. The unity governments of the 1980s provide very unique examples of executive power sharing based in political elite accommodation, however a more common example of executive power sharing is the plethora of middle parties, be they religious or otherwise, that represent differing segments of the population but actively take part in the countries governance by making coalition deals with either of the two major political blocs.
Segmented autonomy is seen within Israel most clearly along religious lines. In some regard, Israel has co-opted and adapted the Ottoman millet system of governance with regard to minorities. The Israeli system entitles religious minorities autonomy over their individual community’s affairs by granting them complete legal authority over personal and family status issues. This means that for each religious community within Israel there is an individualized legal system for issues such as marriage, inheritance, etc: the Jews decide for the Jews how these will work, the Christians decide for the Christians and the Muslims decide for the Muslims. Similarly, within the framework of education Israel has allowed for a degree of segmented autonomy as three distinct (possibly four, if private schools are counted as their own category) categories of education. There is a national education track, catering to secular, western ideals of education, a national religious track, which mixes secular learning with religious study, and a completely autonomous fully religious track which sets its own curriculum based on religious concerns to the exclusion of secular learning. This division of the education sphere allows for the Israeli minorities (in this case particularly Jewish orthodox and ultra-orthodox communities) to have complete control over their educational curricula.
An example of a mixture of both the executive power sharing the segmented autonomy is the Status Quo agreement. Informally established at the founding of the state, the agreement represents an accommodating compromise between religious and secular elites (particularly leaders of the religious establishment and Ben Gurion respectively). The agreement details the setting of certain standards and norms for the governing of religious and secular clashes within the public sphere. Specifically, it delineated issues such as where public transport would be allowed on the Sabbath, a promise of all government institutions adhering to Kashrut laws, and the Rabbinate’s jurisdiction over conversion and personal status issues within the state.
Mutual veto and proportional distribution of resources are not fully implemented within Israel. In no case are ethnic minorities, such as the Arab or religious minorities for example, given a powerful veto over government activities. They have recourse to the Supreme Court to call in question specific governmental actions, however no ability to veto policy or decisions. Resources within Israel are not distributed proportionally to the population size of the minority groups. Again, as only one example, Arab constituencies, which constitute nearly 20% of the country, do not receive a proportional amount of resources. They also do not have full representation in the Knesset according to their population size. Whereas this is probably due to voting patterns among Arabs, it still disqualifies Israel from attaining a fully proportional distribution of resources.
The full implementation of 2 of these 4 mechanisms does contribute to the stability and effectiveness of the Israeli democracy. The executive power sharing and segmented autonomy each provide a method of compromise in the governance of an extremely divided and fragmented society. The coalition governing allows different voices to be heard and compromises to be made which allow for stable democracy to be present ensuring the continuity of the state. The segmented autonomy allows for compromise and give-and-take on issues that otherwise would cause intractable conflict and possible governmental paralysis.
Israel's PR system
Short Essay on the topic:
What are the problems of Proportional Representation as manifested by the Israeli experience?
Comparative Politics and Israel
The Israeli electoral system consists of one nation-wide constituency with a Proportional Representation (PR) election while maintaining a threshold of 2% of the vote for parties to earn representation in the Knesset. While each democratic electoral system inherently presents certain pros and cons, the Israeli case has been plagued with a number of worrisome problems that bring into question the effectiveness of the system as it is currently laid out.
The Israeli case is defined as a consensus democracy in which PR elections should theoretically produce a system of bargaining and compromise because it allows a multiplication of parties and increased diversity within the legislature. This is seen as a boon because it more faithfully represents the realities of the population as a whole and allows no one to gain a significant numerical advantage within the Knesset while dispersing the policy and decision-making processes.
However, the system has its drawbacks as well. With such a low threshold the PR system turns from allowing a healthy multi-party political structure to creating a system flooded with a multitude of small parties. This extreme fragmentation of the political system creates a number of problems. Because so many differing players are involved in governance, the process slows down significantly as each party must weigh in and decide on their own about each matter. This initially seems like a positive factor as it can be construed to contribute to greater stability by decreasing the chances of quick changes and possible disaster because of unintended consequences from badly thought out legislation. However, the danger exists for complete paralysis of the process and may also contribute to faster regime changes because of party disagreements within the ruling coalition.
The unity governments of the 1980s provide an example of this type of interaction. In the late 1970s the Israeli political system shifted from being solely dominated by one party to a bipolar system dominated by two blocs. As the two blocs faced off and were of near equal strength, the option of a full majority emerging in one of the blocs disappeared. This necessitated extreme compromise between all the parties that led to such a slowdown in political governance and at some times governmental paralysis that the perception emerged that the system itself was broken. Having such a low electoral threshold, which allowed many small parties to emerge that could become “kingmakers” by siding with the bloc of their choice, exacerbated this situation.
The PR system in Israel also allows for ineffective governance because the major party fragmentation impairs the ability of the Prime Minister to both form and maintain a stable coalition. Having to tempt more smaller parties into joining a coalition by offering large incentives makes coalition building harder and reduces his ability to lead the coalition as he must give away many of the prime positions and influential posts in exchange for support. This can also have disastrous effect on the maintenance of the coalition as, if one of those parties feels slighted in any way, he might find someone withdrawing suddenly. Effectively, the PM must spend more of his time politicking rather than governing.
The PR system also results in a general lack of accountability within the political system. Because so much of the governance process is made up of compromise and negotiation, parties can easily foist the blame for failures onto other parties, individuals or situations rather than being held responsible. This lack of accountability translates into a lack of effectiveness- no party can be significantly punished at the ballot box and formally lose the mandate of their constituency, resulting in a stagnation of party activity and political process.
What are the problems of Proportional Representation as manifested by the Israeli experience?
Comparative Politics and Israel
The Israeli electoral system consists of one nation-wide constituency with a Proportional Representation (PR) election while maintaining a threshold of 2% of the vote for parties to earn representation in the Knesset. While each democratic electoral system inherently presents certain pros and cons, the Israeli case has been plagued with a number of worrisome problems that bring into question the effectiveness of the system as it is currently laid out.
The Israeli case is defined as a consensus democracy in which PR elections should theoretically produce a system of bargaining and compromise because it allows a multiplication of parties and increased diversity within the legislature. This is seen as a boon because it more faithfully represents the realities of the population as a whole and allows no one to gain a significant numerical advantage within the Knesset while dispersing the policy and decision-making processes.
However, the system has its drawbacks as well. With such a low threshold the PR system turns from allowing a healthy multi-party political structure to creating a system flooded with a multitude of small parties. This extreme fragmentation of the political system creates a number of problems. Because so many differing players are involved in governance, the process slows down significantly as each party must weigh in and decide on their own about each matter. This initially seems like a positive factor as it can be construed to contribute to greater stability by decreasing the chances of quick changes and possible disaster because of unintended consequences from badly thought out legislation. However, the danger exists for complete paralysis of the process and may also contribute to faster regime changes because of party disagreements within the ruling coalition.
The unity governments of the 1980s provide an example of this type of interaction. In the late 1970s the Israeli political system shifted from being solely dominated by one party to a bipolar system dominated by two blocs. As the two blocs faced off and were of near equal strength, the option of a full majority emerging in one of the blocs disappeared. This necessitated extreme compromise between all the parties that led to such a slowdown in political governance and at some times governmental paralysis that the perception emerged that the system itself was broken. Having such a low electoral threshold, which allowed many small parties to emerge that could become “kingmakers” by siding with the bloc of their choice, exacerbated this situation.
The PR system in Israel also allows for ineffective governance because the major party fragmentation impairs the ability of the Prime Minister to both form and maintain a stable coalition. Having to tempt more smaller parties into joining a coalition by offering large incentives makes coalition building harder and reduces his ability to lead the coalition as he must give away many of the prime positions and influential posts in exchange for support. This can also have disastrous effect on the maintenance of the coalition as, if one of those parties feels slighted in any way, he might find someone withdrawing suddenly. Effectively, the PM must spend more of his time politicking rather than governing.
The PR system also results in a general lack of accountability within the political system. Because so much of the governance process is made up of compromise and negotiation, parties can easily foist the blame for failures onto other parties, individuals or situations rather than being held responsible. This lack of accountability translates into a lack of effectiveness- no party can be significantly punished at the ballot box and formally lose the mandate of their constituency, resulting in a stagnation of party activity and political process.
The Israeli Political Spectrum Shift
In the last few years, particularly in the last election, Israeli voters have seen a large shift of the entire political spectrum towards the left. As well, the political parties of the Left bloc have seen a large decline in the numbers and support of their traditional voters. This is largely because of a confluence of a number of trends in political behavior and can be explained by an analysis of different models of political action. Similarly, these models can be used to explain and predict future events and political tactics.
The shift of the political spectrum towards the left has occurred because of a number of factors. The worldwide trend of decrease in levels of turnout for political participation documented by Dalton (2002) is one explanation for the decrease in the voting for the left. While this decrease has not been as drastic in Israel as it has been in other countries, it can still be seen in the volatility of election results and voters shifting from party to party, as well as in public opinion polls of declining trust in public institutions. Because of this (or perhaps causing it) is the appearance and rise of numerous other types of political participation- from political interest groups to NGOs and lobbyists- people are looking for and finding new ways of participating in society.
While the trend of declining public trust is potentially harmful in the long run for national political systems (Shamir & Arian, 2002), it also accounts for the shift in the Israeli political spectrum. Anger over government performance and politics leads some to abstention, but it can also generally lead to questioning long held political beliefs. Hetherington (2005) for example attributes the ascendency and domination of the American Right in the last 30 years to this declining political trust (which in the States resulted in an increase of conservative public policy). The emerging of “new” politics mixes in with this declining political trust with volatile results.
Yishay (1999) describes the five simultaneous elements of change to “new” politics (generally described as a moving public focus away from economic and welfare security to ideals of rights accomplished by well-educated, economically secure, self-motivated citizens) as an affluent socio-economic environment, shift in values and attitudes, changes in partisan alignment, shifts in political behavior and a slide in political agendas towards “politics of identity.” These elements are all seen in Israel and have increased focus on the rights of people and less on the socio-economic needs and security (this is not to say that security isn’t a top priority still in the Israeli state). Combined with the declining public trust, this has shifted the political spectrum to the left (opposite of what occurred in the US according to Hetheringon, 2005) as people become more interested in equality, justice and rights of all(even for Palestinians) than they are in economic security. An intriguing example of this change in political discourse is the acceptance of major parties on the political right, particularly the Likud, of the need for a two-state solution and recognition of Palestinian need of a state.
This shifting of the electorate to the left was further influenced by the individualization of politics which accounts for changes on an individual level as well. Shamir and Arian (1999) describe how issue voting has increased in importance in the last years and social cleavages have decreased in ability to explain certain electoral behaviors. Their theory of collective identity binds together other models of voter behavior, such as the sociological, psychological and the economic approach. While these models are instructive, it can be shown that the sociological model isn’t as applicable today than it has been in the past (Wattenberg, 1995). It can also be argued that the psychological model, built as it is upon psychological affiliation with one party, is becoming less influential as party alignment is declining. It still contains many other elements, such as corollary theories such as the Funnel theory, that can be shown to still be large in effect. The economic perspective and economic voting (via the responsibility hypothesis, Lewis-Beck & Paldam, 2000) though, as an extension of rational choice, is becoming more and more important, especially in the wake of increasingly candidate centered (or personalized) politics in political institutions, the media and politician behavior (Rahat & Sheafer, 2007). Israeli voters, while slowly coming to choose candidates over parties (this was especially pertinent during the time of the direct election of the Prime Minister), have come to rely to a greater extent on specific issues, usually choosing one or two basic issues to extrapolate whether or not a candidate is a good choice. Because the main issues of importance within Israel generally revolve around security, the political left has been hampered as events such as the Second Intifada, the Second Lebanon War, and the Gaza War have convinced large portions of the public that they are in need of strong security oriented leadership- typically not found on the left. This has caused many on the left to shift their votes to the right a bit.
Others have shifted their votes away from their first parties of choice on the left to more centrist parties such as Kadima because of a desire to have more influence in the shaping of the ruling coalition. Within the Rational choice model, there are two accepted types of voters: expressive/sincere voters and instrumental/strategic voters. The first will always choose to vote for their first choice party as an expression of their desires. The second, however, will vote strategically keeping in mind that they can influence the formation and policy of the government more if they unite with a larger consensus to prevent the opposite bloc from gaining power in the coalition bargaining. For instance, many on the left would choose to vote for Kadima because they felt that that party had a good chance of defeating the Likud numerically and thus be asked to form the coalition (which would then probably include their party of first choice). Within the PR multiparty coalition governance system of Israel, this is not a negligible possibility (Aldrich, et al, 2005). However, in the last election it seems that this possibility backfired, as Kadima did manage to garner more votes and MKs than the Likud, but failed to have the backing from enough other parties to form a workable coalition.
Other models for political behavior can be useful in discussing how the Israeli voters are moving away from the perceived left (I say perceived, because it is likely that many of the voters have stayed in the same place ideologically, but because of the spectrum shift, they now find themselves more centrist than leftist) and can assist in the prediction of what will occur in the future. For example, the median model, which describes the candidate need to maximize their potential voters by placing themselves centrally, is related to the proximity model, wherein voters, unable to find an exact ideological fit in the parties, will choose that party which is in closest proximity to them on certain issues. The candidates though must take into account in addition to simple spatial proximity, also directional aspects and characteristics of intensity among voters (Merrill & Grofman, 1999). This will play out in the next elections, as the parties, specifically those on the left, will be forced to reinvent themselves in light of the changed political spectrum and place themselves strategically with new platforms and policies to attract the largest amount of voters. It can already be seen how this has played into Kadima’s hands, as they received so many votes from the left side, despite being a centrist party.
Perhaps the best way for the Left to revive itself though is to pay attention to the principles of the Affective Intelligence model and the Prospect theory. The affective intelligence theory (Marcus, et al, 2000) posits that people, in order to make sense of the various domains and demands of life, operate via two distinct emotional systems: a dispositional and a surveillance system. The first monitors every day interactions assessing successes and failures, while the second looks for novelty or threats in the environment. People will only act out when by means of this system they feel anxious or threatened by new information- in the political behavior arena, they will only act (vote) to change the status quo when they feel that there is a threat or problem with it. For example, in or after periods of high terror, the public shifts to support the right wing’s strict policies on security, as they feel anxious about new developments (Berrebi & Klor, 2006).
Prospect theory is a reaction to certain limitations on rational choice. Put forward by Quatrone & Tversky (1988), the theory predicts that people will exhibit risk aversion in domains of possible gains, but risk seeking behavior in domains of possible losses. Thus, combining these facts with the Affective Intelligence model, the Left must work to convince the public that the risk of shifting to Leftist parties and leadership is less than that of staying with a rightist coalition by raising public anxiety on issues, such as economics, candidate performance, or even security. They can effectively do this by playing on peoples’ emotions with regard to decreasing levels of terror or using recent events (such as the Flotilla attack) to discredit the Right’s near “ownership” of the issue of security. Worrying the public that the right cannot bring full security nor peace and publishing their failures could revive the efforts of the left and the peace camp by increasing voting behavior in their favor.
Bibliography:
Aldrich, J. H., Blais, A., Ideridason, I. H., & Levine, R. (2005). Coalition Consideration and the Vote. In Arain, A., & Shamir, M. (Eds.) The Elections in Israel, 2003.
Berrebi, C., & Klor, E. F. (2006). On Terrorism and Electoral Outcomes: Theory and Evidence from the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50(6), 899-925.
Dalton, R.J. (2002). Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Western Democracies (Third Edition). New York: Chatham House Publishers.
Hetherington, M.J. (2005). Why Trust Matters” Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lewis-Beck, M. S. & Paldam, M. (2000). Economic Voting: An Introduction. Electoral Studies, 19 (2&3), 113-121.
Marcus, G. E., Neuman, W. R., & MacKuen, M. (2000). Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Merrill, S. III, & Grofman, B. (1999). A Unified Theory of Voting: Directional and Proximity Spatial Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Quatrone, G. A. & Tversky, A. (1988). Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice. American Political Science Review, 82(3), 719-736.
Rahat, G. & Sheafer, T. (2007). The Personalization(s) of Politics: Israel 1949-2003. Political Communication, 24, 65-80.
Shamir, M., & Arian, A. (1999). Collective Identity and Electoral Competition in Israel. American Political Science Review, 93(2), 265-277.
Shamir, M., & Arian, A. (2002). Abstaining and Voting in 2001. In Arian, A., & Shamir, M. (Eds.) The Elections in Israel 2001. Jerusalem: The Democracy Library.
Yishay, Y. (1999). “Old” versus “New” Politics in the 1996 Elections. In Arian, A., & Shamir, M. (Eds.) The Elections in Israel, 1996. SUNY Press and the Israel Democracy Institute.
The shift of the political spectrum towards the left has occurred because of a number of factors. The worldwide trend of decrease in levels of turnout for political participation documented by Dalton (2002) is one explanation for the decrease in the voting for the left. While this decrease has not been as drastic in Israel as it has been in other countries, it can still be seen in the volatility of election results and voters shifting from party to party, as well as in public opinion polls of declining trust in public institutions. Because of this (or perhaps causing it) is the appearance and rise of numerous other types of political participation- from political interest groups to NGOs and lobbyists- people are looking for and finding new ways of participating in society.
While the trend of declining public trust is potentially harmful in the long run for national political systems (Shamir & Arian, 2002), it also accounts for the shift in the Israeli political spectrum. Anger over government performance and politics leads some to abstention, but it can also generally lead to questioning long held political beliefs. Hetherington (2005) for example attributes the ascendency and domination of the American Right in the last 30 years to this declining political trust (which in the States resulted in an increase of conservative public policy). The emerging of “new” politics mixes in with this declining political trust with volatile results.
Yishay (1999) describes the five simultaneous elements of change to “new” politics (generally described as a moving public focus away from economic and welfare security to ideals of rights accomplished by well-educated, economically secure, self-motivated citizens) as an affluent socio-economic environment, shift in values and attitudes, changes in partisan alignment, shifts in political behavior and a slide in political agendas towards “politics of identity.” These elements are all seen in Israel and have increased focus on the rights of people and less on the socio-economic needs and security (this is not to say that security isn’t a top priority still in the Israeli state). Combined with the declining public trust, this has shifted the political spectrum to the left (opposite of what occurred in the US according to Hetheringon, 2005) as people become more interested in equality, justice and rights of all(even for Palestinians) than they are in economic security. An intriguing example of this change in political discourse is the acceptance of major parties on the political right, particularly the Likud, of the need for a two-state solution and recognition of Palestinian need of a state.
This shifting of the electorate to the left was further influenced by the individualization of politics which accounts for changes on an individual level as well. Shamir and Arian (1999) describe how issue voting has increased in importance in the last years and social cleavages have decreased in ability to explain certain electoral behaviors. Their theory of collective identity binds together other models of voter behavior, such as the sociological, psychological and the economic approach. While these models are instructive, it can be shown that the sociological model isn’t as applicable today than it has been in the past (Wattenberg, 1995). It can also be argued that the psychological model, built as it is upon psychological affiliation with one party, is becoming less influential as party alignment is declining. It still contains many other elements, such as corollary theories such as the Funnel theory, that can be shown to still be large in effect. The economic perspective and economic voting (via the responsibility hypothesis, Lewis-Beck & Paldam, 2000) though, as an extension of rational choice, is becoming more and more important, especially in the wake of increasingly candidate centered (or personalized) politics in political institutions, the media and politician behavior (Rahat & Sheafer, 2007). Israeli voters, while slowly coming to choose candidates over parties (this was especially pertinent during the time of the direct election of the Prime Minister), have come to rely to a greater extent on specific issues, usually choosing one or two basic issues to extrapolate whether or not a candidate is a good choice. Because the main issues of importance within Israel generally revolve around security, the political left has been hampered as events such as the Second Intifada, the Second Lebanon War, and the Gaza War have convinced large portions of the public that they are in need of strong security oriented leadership- typically not found on the left. This has caused many on the left to shift their votes to the right a bit.
Others have shifted their votes away from their first parties of choice on the left to more centrist parties such as Kadima because of a desire to have more influence in the shaping of the ruling coalition. Within the Rational choice model, there are two accepted types of voters: expressive/sincere voters and instrumental/strategic voters. The first will always choose to vote for their first choice party as an expression of their desires. The second, however, will vote strategically keeping in mind that they can influence the formation and policy of the government more if they unite with a larger consensus to prevent the opposite bloc from gaining power in the coalition bargaining. For instance, many on the left would choose to vote for Kadima because they felt that that party had a good chance of defeating the Likud numerically and thus be asked to form the coalition (which would then probably include their party of first choice). Within the PR multiparty coalition governance system of Israel, this is not a negligible possibility (Aldrich, et al, 2005). However, in the last election it seems that this possibility backfired, as Kadima did manage to garner more votes and MKs than the Likud, but failed to have the backing from enough other parties to form a workable coalition.
Other models for political behavior can be useful in discussing how the Israeli voters are moving away from the perceived left (I say perceived, because it is likely that many of the voters have stayed in the same place ideologically, but because of the spectrum shift, they now find themselves more centrist than leftist) and can assist in the prediction of what will occur in the future. For example, the median model, which describes the candidate need to maximize their potential voters by placing themselves centrally, is related to the proximity model, wherein voters, unable to find an exact ideological fit in the parties, will choose that party which is in closest proximity to them on certain issues. The candidates though must take into account in addition to simple spatial proximity, also directional aspects and characteristics of intensity among voters (Merrill & Grofman, 1999). This will play out in the next elections, as the parties, specifically those on the left, will be forced to reinvent themselves in light of the changed political spectrum and place themselves strategically with new platforms and policies to attract the largest amount of voters. It can already be seen how this has played into Kadima’s hands, as they received so many votes from the left side, despite being a centrist party.
Perhaps the best way for the Left to revive itself though is to pay attention to the principles of the Affective Intelligence model and the Prospect theory. The affective intelligence theory (Marcus, et al, 2000) posits that people, in order to make sense of the various domains and demands of life, operate via two distinct emotional systems: a dispositional and a surveillance system. The first monitors every day interactions assessing successes and failures, while the second looks for novelty or threats in the environment. People will only act out when by means of this system they feel anxious or threatened by new information- in the political behavior arena, they will only act (vote) to change the status quo when they feel that there is a threat or problem with it. For example, in or after periods of high terror, the public shifts to support the right wing’s strict policies on security, as they feel anxious about new developments (Berrebi & Klor, 2006).
Prospect theory is a reaction to certain limitations on rational choice. Put forward by Quatrone & Tversky (1988), the theory predicts that people will exhibit risk aversion in domains of possible gains, but risk seeking behavior in domains of possible losses. Thus, combining these facts with the Affective Intelligence model, the Left must work to convince the public that the risk of shifting to Leftist parties and leadership is less than that of staying with a rightist coalition by raising public anxiety on issues, such as economics, candidate performance, or even security. They can effectively do this by playing on peoples’ emotions with regard to decreasing levels of terror or using recent events (such as the Flotilla attack) to discredit the Right’s near “ownership” of the issue of security. Worrying the public that the right cannot bring full security nor peace and publishing their failures could revive the efforts of the left and the peace camp by increasing voting behavior in their favor.
Bibliography:
Aldrich, J. H., Blais, A., Ideridason, I. H., & Levine, R. (2005). Coalition Consideration and the Vote. In Arain, A., & Shamir, M. (Eds.) The Elections in Israel, 2003.
Berrebi, C., & Klor, E. F. (2006). On Terrorism and Electoral Outcomes: Theory and Evidence from the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 50(6), 899-925.
Dalton, R.J. (2002). Citizen Politics: Public Opinion and Political Parties in Advanced Western Democracies (Third Edition). New York: Chatham House Publishers.
Hetherington, M.J. (2005). Why Trust Matters” Declining Political Trust and the Demise of American Liberalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Lewis-Beck, M. S. & Paldam, M. (2000). Economic Voting: An Introduction. Electoral Studies, 19 (2&3), 113-121.
Marcus, G. E., Neuman, W. R., & MacKuen, M. (2000). Affective Intelligence and Political Judgment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Merrill, S. III, & Grofman, B. (1999). A Unified Theory of Voting: Directional and Proximity Spatial Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Quatrone, G. A. & Tversky, A. (1988). Contrasting Rational and Psychological Analyses of Political Choice. American Political Science Review, 82(3), 719-736.
Rahat, G. & Sheafer, T. (2007). The Personalization(s) of Politics: Israel 1949-2003. Political Communication, 24, 65-80.
Shamir, M., & Arian, A. (1999). Collective Identity and Electoral Competition in Israel. American Political Science Review, 93(2), 265-277.
Shamir, M., & Arian, A. (2002). Abstaining and Voting in 2001. In Arian, A., & Shamir, M. (Eds.) The Elections in Israel 2001. Jerusalem: The Democracy Library.
Yishay, Y. (1999). “Old” versus “New” Politics in the 1996 Elections. In Arian, A., & Shamir, M. (Eds.) The Elections in Israel, 1996. SUNY Press and the Israel Democracy Institute.
Islam and Development
This short essay answers the question:
To what extent is the argument that “the Muslim belief is the major cause for hampering development in the Middle East” justified?
From a class on Political Economy in the Middle East.
This statement is only partly justified, because while there are aspects of the Muslim belief system that have a negative effect upon development, there are also aspects of belief that are beneficial for economic development and many other non-faith related traits within the region that further hamper the regions ability to further development.
The idea of Islamic economics that began arising in the mid 1900s didn’t arise as a theory of economics; instead it was meant as a socio-political construct to help restore Islamic self-respect and communal cohesion. Thus, the idea was not advanced as a means to further economic growth and development and in fact seemed more or less unconcerned about the potential hampering of economic development that would occur because it brought with it some growth-hampering characteristics. The goals of the system were not economic, but social, which meant that it was never held to the scientific standards of economics (coherence, precision and realism).
One of the major hampering effects of this system was the effective binding of Islam to the state apparatus. Effectively, this hampered the growth potential of the populace and the state by proclaiming that any economic endeavor not sanctioned by Islam was either prohibited or publically discouraged and relegated to the underground.
Besides this merging of religion and state, the system advocated a number of other culturally appreciated (but perhaps economically dubious) institutional requirements: the rejection of riba (interest or increase without risk), a zakat system of religious donations, and the establishment of an Islamic moral filter for all economic decisions. Similarly, the system also promoted the preeminence of a number of cultural-religious mores and norms that would further impede economic growth: the rejection and discouragement of Bid’ah (innovation), the advancement of waqf, and a tradition of oppression of women.
While riba was probably initially banned by Muhammad as a means of combating exorbitant lending practices that nearly always ended in debt defaulting leading to slavery, the continued rejection thereof stands only to deflate possible economic growth. Interest is important as an incentive for both payment and loaning in general; it can help cover the risks and expenses of investment, and it can help to deal with inflation. In some time periods, the Prophet’s injunction against riba has been reinterpreted to be a rather low set interest rate, indicating that they felt that interest was important to economic growth and allowed by Islamic law. The indiscriminate banning of interest discourages investment and loans, and requires banking institutions to development round about ways to deal with the lack. This generally leads to either dubious banking practices and underhanded dealings or a stagnant and stifled economy.
The zakat system stands as minor form of wealth redistribution. A small percentage of a person or business’ income is donated to a religious fund for caring for the poor. However, as the cases where Islamic economics have been officially introduced and accepted on a national level, it is apparent that as an attempted reduction of inequality and poverty, the zakat system has failed. Because of loopholes in the system and evasion of payment by businesses, the funds have not been forthcoming, and that which has been collected has, in many cases, been diverted to other causes. At the same time the high administrative and bureaucratic costs of the system have offset any gains that have been garnered. In addition, large-scale corruption within these systems has been rife. In these cases then, it is certain that the zakat system has been more of a drain on the economy rather than a significant redistribution and check on economic gaps. Thus, it can be said that if mismanaged, this system hampers economic growth, but there is not an opposite case of well-managed zakat that can prove if it would be effective otherwise.
The promotion of an Islamic moral filter within the economic sector could be effective in promotion of economic growth if it was undertaken in the correct manner. If it was established as a sort of ethics oversight committee or an equivalent to something like the Better Business Bureau, it could be very effective in promoting fair business practices and ethical actions. On the other hand, if the filter was established solely as a rejection committee for anything deemed “inappropriate” by its own interpretation of Islam the moral filter could then significantly hamper economic activity by both rejecting new business ideas as well as filling the economic sector with large amounts of red tape that would hamper business transactions and stifle growth.
Whether or not the Islamic moral filter would be a growth or hampering factor could depend upon the extent to which the filter establishes the rejection and disapproval of bid’ah. Depending on the extent to which this is emphasized the lack of innovation could be relegated solely to religious innovation, being ignored with regard to other areas of societal growth, allowing any number of innovations that could bring economic growth. However, it could also be applied in all areas of society. If this was the case, it would lead to stagnation and limitation on the economy as new inventions, products and services could potentially be rejected and their economic potential ignored.
The advancement and protection of religious waqfs also could serve as a potential economic hampering. As a religious endowment, waqf can serve to tie up funds that could otherwise serve to fill-out and promote economic growth. They can also serve to help stifle economic growth by tying up land and other resources that are then unable to be used in growing sectors of the economy. In response to this, many Arab countries started in the 1960s to pass legislation allowing the break-up of waqfs so that their fund could be reused. However, within more traditional areas, such as Palestine, these moves have not only been resisted, but an increase in waqf dedications have been seen as an attempt to stymie Israeli expansion (as religious endowments have some protection under Israeli law). This could serve to hamper the areas economy in the long run.
The Islamic culture also brings with it a recognized oppression or suppression of women. This large segment of society could be very influential in economic growth. As it stands today though, illiteracy is twice as large among women than among men. Women have little access to ownership of business, land or other productive assets. And while the number of women in the workforce is increasing they are largely relegated to lesser levels of employment (mostly in the agrarian and service sectors). Muslim cultural beliefs with regard to keeping women from education and the workforce do stymie economic growth.
As has been shown, many Muslim beliefs and/or associated institutional arrangements in some ways can decrease economic growth. However, this does not mean that Muslim beliefs in general will hamper economics. It has been shown that in general religious belief correlates with increased productivity. (The same study also showed that increased church attendance correlated to decrease economic growth. It would be interesting to see if this was the same with Muslim prayer practices and mosque attendance).
Despite all this though, it is hardly justified to call Muslim belief the “major” cause for decreased development in the Middle East as there are other major causes of economic hampering. Some of these which stand out are: poor economic governance, low small-industry growth, democratic lag or deficit, political upheavals, bad business environment (caused by corruption, and overwrought rules and regulations), low quality of human capital, and lack of regional cooperation.
To what extent is the argument that “the Muslim belief is the major cause for hampering development in the Middle East” justified?
From a class on Political Economy in the Middle East.
This statement is only partly justified, because while there are aspects of the Muslim belief system that have a negative effect upon development, there are also aspects of belief that are beneficial for economic development and many other non-faith related traits within the region that further hamper the regions ability to further development.
The idea of Islamic economics that began arising in the mid 1900s didn’t arise as a theory of economics; instead it was meant as a socio-political construct to help restore Islamic self-respect and communal cohesion. Thus, the idea was not advanced as a means to further economic growth and development and in fact seemed more or less unconcerned about the potential hampering of economic development that would occur because it brought with it some growth-hampering characteristics. The goals of the system were not economic, but social, which meant that it was never held to the scientific standards of economics (coherence, precision and realism).
One of the major hampering effects of this system was the effective binding of Islam to the state apparatus. Effectively, this hampered the growth potential of the populace and the state by proclaiming that any economic endeavor not sanctioned by Islam was either prohibited or publically discouraged and relegated to the underground.
Besides this merging of religion and state, the system advocated a number of other culturally appreciated (but perhaps economically dubious) institutional requirements: the rejection of riba (interest or increase without risk), a zakat system of religious donations, and the establishment of an Islamic moral filter for all economic decisions. Similarly, the system also promoted the preeminence of a number of cultural-religious mores and norms that would further impede economic growth: the rejection and discouragement of Bid’ah (innovation), the advancement of waqf, and a tradition of oppression of women.
While riba was probably initially banned by Muhammad as a means of combating exorbitant lending practices that nearly always ended in debt defaulting leading to slavery, the continued rejection thereof stands only to deflate possible economic growth. Interest is important as an incentive for both payment and loaning in general; it can help cover the risks and expenses of investment, and it can help to deal with inflation. In some time periods, the Prophet’s injunction against riba has been reinterpreted to be a rather low set interest rate, indicating that they felt that interest was important to economic growth and allowed by Islamic law. The indiscriminate banning of interest discourages investment and loans, and requires banking institutions to development round about ways to deal with the lack. This generally leads to either dubious banking practices and underhanded dealings or a stagnant and stifled economy.
The zakat system stands as minor form of wealth redistribution. A small percentage of a person or business’ income is donated to a religious fund for caring for the poor. However, as the cases where Islamic economics have been officially introduced and accepted on a national level, it is apparent that as an attempted reduction of inequality and poverty, the zakat system has failed. Because of loopholes in the system and evasion of payment by businesses, the funds have not been forthcoming, and that which has been collected has, in many cases, been diverted to other causes. At the same time the high administrative and bureaucratic costs of the system have offset any gains that have been garnered. In addition, large-scale corruption within these systems has been rife. In these cases then, it is certain that the zakat system has been more of a drain on the economy rather than a significant redistribution and check on economic gaps. Thus, it can be said that if mismanaged, this system hampers economic growth, but there is not an opposite case of well-managed zakat that can prove if it would be effective otherwise.
The promotion of an Islamic moral filter within the economic sector could be effective in promotion of economic growth if it was undertaken in the correct manner. If it was established as a sort of ethics oversight committee or an equivalent to something like the Better Business Bureau, it could be very effective in promoting fair business practices and ethical actions. On the other hand, if the filter was established solely as a rejection committee for anything deemed “inappropriate” by its own interpretation of Islam the moral filter could then significantly hamper economic activity by both rejecting new business ideas as well as filling the economic sector with large amounts of red tape that would hamper business transactions and stifle growth.
Whether or not the Islamic moral filter would be a growth or hampering factor could depend upon the extent to which the filter establishes the rejection and disapproval of bid’ah. Depending on the extent to which this is emphasized the lack of innovation could be relegated solely to religious innovation, being ignored with regard to other areas of societal growth, allowing any number of innovations that could bring economic growth. However, it could also be applied in all areas of society. If this was the case, it would lead to stagnation and limitation on the economy as new inventions, products and services could potentially be rejected and their economic potential ignored.
The advancement and protection of religious waqfs also could serve as a potential economic hampering. As a religious endowment, waqf can serve to tie up funds that could otherwise serve to fill-out and promote economic growth. They can also serve to help stifle economic growth by tying up land and other resources that are then unable to be used in growing sectors of the economy. In response to this, many Arab countries started in the 1960s to pass legislation allowing the break-up of waqfs so that their fund could be reused. However, within more traditional areas, such as Palestine, these moves have not only been resisted, but an increase in waqf dedications have been seen as an attempt to stymie Israeli expansion (as religious endowments have some protection under Israeli law). This could serve to hamper the areas economy in the long run.
The Islamic culture also brings with it a recognized oppression or suppression of women. This large segment of society could be very influential in economic growth. As it stands today though, illiteracy is twice as large among women than among men. Women have little access to ownership of business, land or other productive assets. And while the number of women in the workforce is increasing they are largely relegated to lesser levels of employment (mostly in the agrarian and service sectors). Muslim cultural beliefs with regard to keeping women from education and the workforce do stymie economic growth.
As has been shown, many Muslim beliefs and/or associated institutional arrangements in some ways can decrease economic growth. However, this does not mean that Muslim beliefs in general will hamper economics. It has been shown that in general religious belief correlates with increased productivity. (The same study also showed that increased church attendance correlated to decrease economic growth. It would be interesting to see if this was the same with Muslim prayer practices and mosque attendance).
Despite all this though, it is hardly justified to call Muslim belief the “major” cause for decreased development in the Middle East as there are other major causes of economic hampering. Some of these which stand out are: poor economic governance, low small-industry growth, democratic lag or deficit, political upheavals, bad business environment (caused by corruption, and overwrought rules and regulations), low quality of human capital, and lack of regional cooperation.
Population transfer, Bi-nationalism and Partition
This short essay answers this query:
Explain the following policy proposals and evaluate their relative importance in the history of Zionism in relation to the conflict with the Arabs:
(a) Transfer of population
(b) Bi-nationalism
(c) Partition
The first policy proposal, transfer of population (specifically the Arabs out of Israel, however sometimes coupled with exchanging Jewish groups from Arab countries), has its roots within the Radical Revisionists. Although some scholars have suggested that Jabotinsky himself had some leanings toward or perhaps even fully accepted the idea of voluntary transfer or exchange (all are in agreement that he fully objected to forced evacuation), it is absolutely sure that initially it was only the very fringe groups of Zionism that accepted or advocated population transfer.
This policy has its base in the general ideology of the radical Revisionists whose movement was characterized by authoritarian tendencies and quasi-religious messianic rhetoric that sought to replace the regular Zionist idea of a national home for the Jews with that of malkhut Israel (“the Kingdom of Israel”), an allusion to the establishment of a Jewish imperialism. This, combined with their attempts to regain a regesh ha-adnut or sense of mastery over the land, resulted in their classification of both the British and the Arabs in Palestine as alien occupants in the land that must either accept Jewish majority rule or be forced out.
The LEHI movement under Avraham Stern expounded on this further. They claimed that the right to the land was delineated by might or conquest. As well, they relied on the argument that the Arabs in Palestine constituted only a part of the larger Arab nation. They denied that they had any sort of national character and thus allowed that it would be easy for the Arabs to accept removal to another Arab land. This paved the way for these radicals to actively pursue transfer of the Arab population out of Israel as a reasonable and long-lasting solution since they agreed with Jabotinsky that the Arabs would never fully accept minority status or citizenship under Zionist rule.
In the late 1940s, this proposal figured prominently in their political platforms. It faded slightly directly before the 1948 War, but was revived as the war continued and the movement began to consider Jabotinsky mistaken in believing that a large portion of the Arabs would eventually accept the Jewish state. Following the war, the prominence of the proposal again faded only to be revived again 20 years later after the Six Day War. This time though, population transfer was even more popular as members of the religious Zionist movement joined the remnant of the Radical Revisionists, even expanding the idea to include transfer of Arabs out of the occupied territories.
As a policy, forced population transfer or exchange never occupied a place of extreme importance within Zionism. It was never advocated or accepted by any except the most radical fringes of the Zionist movement. However, this is not to say that it did not have influence within the history of Zionism. It can be shown that its influence and importance have grown, as those who consider it a valid and sustainable solution to the conflict have grown from the small numbers of the LEHI and Radical Revisionists to include members of the religious Zionist movement as well as others who have come to see the conflict in similar zero-sum game terms.
The “compromise for peace” camp initially promoted the second policy proposal, bi-nationalism. In simple terms, the policy encouraged the creation of a single state built on compromise in which both Jews and Arabs would have equal say without regard for numerical superiority. The idea was advocated by many different groups, the first among them being Brit Shalom, which was then followed chronologically by Kema Mizraha, the League for Jewish-Arab Rapprochement and Cooperation, Ha-shomer Ha-tzair, Left Polei Zion and Ihud (or the Union Association). These groups represent the opposite side of the spectrum from the Radical Revisionists, and were also relatively small in numbers.
The ideology and policies of Brit Shalom were largely the product of the thinking of many intellectuals such as Rabbi Benjamin, Yitshak Epstein, Martin Buber, and Arthur Ruppin, among others. It was founded largely because these individuals felt that the Zionist leadership was neglecting an important issue by not cultivating relations with the Arabs. They felt that the success of the Zionist cause was dependent upon Arab good will and cooperation. Buber specifically phrased his thoughts within the framework of freedom, feeling that it was moral reprehensible for one people to oppress or dominate another. He, along with others, thus helped develop the idea that a state governed equally and cooperatively by both Arabs and Jews would both benefit all parties as well as be morally and rationally acceptable.
The other Zionist groups and individuals of the times which supported the bi-national idea did so for similar, albeit different reasons. Judah Magnes, one of the founders of the Ihud, was strongly in favor of a bi-national state (rather than a solely Jewish one) because it would allow for the greatest possible achievement of the right to self-determination for both sides (despite granting neither a full exercise thereof). Ha-shomer Ha-Tzair advocated the policy because it fit well with their socialist goals and advocacy of the common working class.
The bi-national movement never had any significant influence within the history of Zionism. This was largely because it seemed unconcerned with Jewish immigration into the area as it did not see a Jewish majority in the country as one of its preeminent goals and because it recognized that the Arabs in Palestine had an equal right and claim to the land. These ideas clashed with the larger Labor Zionist movement and the Revisionists, despite attempts to make the policy more attractive to them. The policy was also not long lasting, fading from the scene following the British abandonment of the Mandate and the establishment of Israel. This policy was neither able to rouse the interest of large numbers within the Jewish community nor garner a good response from the Arabs.
Partition, a policy proposing the establishment of two nations, one Arab and one Jewish, enjoyed the largest amount of influence and importance of the three. This was largely because the Labor Zionists who constituted the largest and most influential section within both the Jewish Agency and the Zionist Organization accepted it as a viable initial solution to the Jewish problem. The leadership of these institutions (David Ben Gurion and Chaim Weizmann) was much more pragmatic than the leadership of the fringe groupings. Jabotinsky and the Revisionists rejected partition on the grounds that the Jewish claim was for all of Palestine and should not be divided. The Brit Shalom tradition rejected it in favor of the bi-national state. Ben Gurion and Weizmann began to publically embrace partition around the 1937 release of the Peel Commission report that would present Partition as the proposed British policy.
It is important to note that Ben Gurion and Weizmann’s acceptance of partition was not because of any desire to reach a compromised solution with the Arabs. While they accepted it as a viable line of policy for providing all sides with justice and self-determination, they mostly sided with it because it was seen as the fastest way to attain their own self-interest in the establishment of a Jewish homeland.
While this policy was largely divisive among the Zionists initially, it gained much support as time went by and eventually was accepted by both the Jewish Zionist community and the international community.
Bibliography
Galnoor, Itzhak. The Partition of Palestine: Decision Crossroads in the Zionist Movement, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1995.
Gorny, Yosef. Zionism and the Arabs: 1882-1948, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987.
Mendes-Flohr, Paul, ed. A land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs, Oxford University Press, New York, 1983.
Shavit, Yaakov. Jabotinksy and the Revisionist Movement: 1925-1948, Cass, London, 1988.
Shimoni, Gideon. The Zionist Ideology, Brandeis & University Press of New England, Hanover & London, 1995.
Tessler, Mark. A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1994.
Explain the following policy proposals and evaluate their relative importance in the history of Zionism in relation to the conflict with the Arabs:
(a) Transfer of population
(b) Bi-nationalism
(c) Partition
The first policy proposal, transfer of population (specifically the Arabs out of Israel, however sometimes coupled with exchanging Jewish groups from Arab countries), has its roots within the Radical Revisionists. Although some scholars have suggested that Jabotinsky himself had some leanings toward or perhaps even fully accepted the idea of voluntary transfer or exchange (all are in agreement that he fully objected to forced evacuation), it is absolutely sure that initially it was only the very fringe groups of Zionism that accepted or advocated population transfer.
This policy has its base in the general ideology of the radical Revisionists whose movement was characterized by authoritarian tendencies and quasi-religious messianic rhetoric that sought to replace the regular Zionist idea of a national home for the Jews with that of malkhut Israel (“the Kingdom of Israel”), an allusion to the establishment of a Jewish imperialism. This, combined with their attempts to regain a regesh ha-adnut or sense of mastery over the land, resulted in their classification of both the British and the Arabs in Palestine as alien occupants in the land that must either accept Jewish majority rule or be forced out.
The LEHI movement under Avraham Stern expounded on this further. They claimed that the right to the land was delineated by might or conquest. As well, they relied on the argument that the Arabs in Palestine constituted only a part of the larger Arab nation. They denied that they had any sort of national character and thus allowed that it would be easy for the Arabs to accept removal to another Arab land. This paved the way for these radicals to actively pursue transfer of the Arab population out of Israel as a reasonable and long-lasting solution since they agreed with Jabotinsky that the Arabs would never fully accept minority status or citizenship under Zionist rule.
In the late 1940s, this proposal figured prominently in their political platforms. It faded slightly directly before the 1948 War, but was revived as the war continued and the movement began to consider Jabotinsky mistaken in believing that a large portion of the Arabs would eventually accept the Jewish state. Following the war, the prominence of the proposal again faded only to be revived again 20 years later after the Six Day War. This time though, population transfer was even more popular as members of the religious Zionist movement joined the remnant of the Radical Revisionists, even expanding the idea to include transfer of Arabs out of the occupied territories.
As a policy, forced population transfer or exchange never occupied a place of extreme importance within Zionism. It was never advocated or accepted by any except the most radical fringes of the Zionist movement. However, this is not to say that it did not have influence within the history of Zionism. It can be shown that its influence and importance have grown, as those who consider it a valid and sustainable solution to the conflict have grown from the small numbers of the LEHI and Radical Revisionists to include members of the religious Zionist movement as well as others who have come to see the conflict in similar zero-sum game terms.
The “compromise for peace” camp initially promoted the second policy proposal, bi-nationalism. In simple terms, the policy encouraged the creation of a single state built on compromise in which both Jews and Arabs would have equal say without regard for numerical superiority. The idea was advocated by many different groups, the first among them being Brit Shalom, which was then followed chronologically by Kema Mizraha, the League for Jewish-Arab Rapprochement and Cooperation, Ha-shomer Ha-tzair, Left Polei Zion and Ihud (or the Union Association). These groups represent the opposite side of the spectrum from the Radical Revisionists, and were also relatively small in numbers.
The ideology and policies of Brit Shalom were largely the product of the thinking of many intellectuals such as Rabbi Benjamin, Yitshak Epstein, Martin Buber, and Arthur Ruppin, among others. It was founded largely because these individuals felt that the Zionist leadership was neglecting an important issue by not cultivating relations with the Arabs. They felt that the success of the Zionist cause was dependent upon Arab good will and cooperation. Buber specifically phrased his thoughts within the framework of freedom, feeling that it was moral reprehensible for one people to oppress or dominate another. He, along with others, thus helped develop the idea that a state governed equally and cooperatively by both Arabs and Jews would both benefit all parties as well as be morally and rationally acceptable.
The other Zionist groups and individuals of the times which supported the bi-national idea did so for similar, albeit different reasons. Judah Magnes, one of the founders of the Ihud, was strongly in favor of a bi-national state (rather than a solely Jewish one) because it would allow for the greatest possible achievement of the right to self-determination for both sides (despite granting neither a full exercise thereof). Ha-shomer Ha-Tzair advocated the policy because it fit well with their socialist goals and advocacy of the common working class.
The bi-national movement never had any significant influence within the history of Zionism. This was largely because it seemed unconcerned with Jewish immigration into the area as it did not see a Jewish majority in the country as one of its preeminent goals and because it recognized that the Arabs in Palestine had an equal right and claim to the land. These ideas clashed with the larger Labor Zionist movement and the Revisionists, despite attempts to make the policy more attractive to them. The policy was also not long lasting, fading from the scene following the British abandonment of the Mandate and the establishment of Israel. This policy was neither able to rouse the interest of large numbers within the Jewish community nor garner a good response from the Arabs.
Partition, a policy proposing the establishment of two nations, one Arab and one Jewish, enjoyed the largest amount of influence and importance of the three. This was largely because the Labor Zionists who constituted the largest and most influential section within both the Jewish Agency and the Zionist Organization accepted it as a viable initial solution to the Jewish problem. The leadership of these institutions (David Ben Gurion and Chaim Weizmann) was much more pragmatic than the leadership of the fringe groupings. Jabotinsky and the Revisionists rejected partition on the grounds that the Jewish claim was for all of Palestine and should not be divided. The Brit Shalom tradition rejected it in favor of the bi-national state. Ben Gurion and Weizmann began to publically embrace partition around the 1937 release of the Peel Commission report that would present Partition as the proposed British policy.
It is important to note that Ben Gurion and Weizmann’s acceptance of partition was not because of any desire to reach a compromised solution with the Arabs. While they accepted it as a viable line of policy for providing all sides with justice and self-determination, they mostly sided with it because it was seen as the fastest way to attain their own self-interest in the establishment of a Jewish homeland.
While this policy was largely divisive among the Zionists initially, it gained much support as time went by and eventually was accepted by both the Jewish Zionist community and the international community.
Bibliography
Galnoor, Itzhak. The Partition of Palestine: Decision Crossroads in the Zionist Movement, State University of New York Press, Albany, 1995.
Gorny, Yosef. Zionism and the Arabs: 1882-1948, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1987.
Mendes-Flohr, Paul, ed. A land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs, Oxford University Press, New York, 1983.
Shavit, Yaakov. Jabotinksy and the Revisionist Movement: 1925-1948, Cass, London, 1988.
Shimoni, Gideon. The Zionist Ideology, Brandeis & University Press of New England, Hanover & London, 1995.
Tessler, Mark. A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1994.
Direct Election of the Prime Minister
Direct Election of the Prime Minister
The History and Outcome of Israel’s Experiment with Direct Democracy
Andrew C. Smith
Hebrew University
Seminar Paper
Social and Political History of Israel
Simon Epstein
Spring 2009
Introduction
The 1990s witnessed a blossoming of new direct democracy trends throughout the world. From referendum to institutional change, it seemed that a fever gripped the world in an attempt to overcome intermediary governmental mechanisms separating the people from their governments. (Scarrow 2001). This direct democracy suggested a new era in politics in many democratic countries and was hailed by some as a great historic change. This was especially true within Israel.
In 1992, the Israeli Knesset enacted a new law governing the electoral process “which calls for the direct election of the prime minister.” This reform was the result of decades of struggle against the electoral and political norms that had been instituted in the late 40s and 50s and brought with it “a dramatic change in the competitive electoral orientation of the Israeli party system.” (Hazan 1999, 163). To be first tested in the elections of 1996, the new system created a new paradigm of democratic governance:
The Israeli case is a synthesis of both parliamentary and presidential regime types, in which the elements are equally balanced, and not a fluctuation between the prevalence of one over the other. Israel, therefore, is no longer purely parliamentary and has not become purely presidential nor semi-presidential. In other words, as of the 1996 elections Israel became an institutionally unique and hybrid type of political regime. (Hazan 1999, 165).
The new system failed: less than a decade later, the reform was repealed. For those who viewed reform as vital to the success of the state, this failure represented a chilling moment. Many had tried for decades to bring about the change that they sought, and after finding the “perfect storm” needed to bring about reform, it was found to be lacking in many regards.
This paper will discuss the history of the reform attempts and the events immediately prior to the passing of direct election. It will cover the major changes that were enacted and their effects. Particularly, it will discuss the expectations of the reforms, their claims, hopes and reasons for choosing the type of reform they did, as well as the realities that stemmed from the reform and the resulting consequences of the reform experiment on the Israeli political and electoral system.
History
The history of attempted reform in the Israeli state dates nearly to the establishment of the state. Certain aspects of the political, and particularly the electoral, system have begged reform since the earliest days of the late 40s and early 50s. Some of the aspects of the electoral system that particularly were targets for change were the extreme proportional representation system wherein the polity itself stood as a single district and the extremely low electoral threshold (originally at 1%, but which has been raised a number of times until today when it stands at 2%). Within the political system one of the most debated issues of reform is that of enacting a fully written constitution to better define the processes, powers and politics of the state.
A number of proposals have been heard in the Knesset for the “correcting” of these issues. Ben Gurion himself wished “to replace the nationwide party-list PR system with a simple majority (winner-takes-all) system, based on the British model of single-member constituencies.” (Brichta 1998, 184). This initial proposal has been followed through the years by many more attempts.
The failed proposals encompassed practically every possible form of change, including: single-member constituencies; multi-member constituencies, with and without national pools; the single-transferable vote; thresholds of up to 10 per cent; a reduction in the number of MKs; and even proposals for a presidential system. (Hazan 1996, 24).
None of these major reforms made it very far within the Knesset. The political makeup of the state can be said to account for this failure as far as the first decades of its history are concerned. With the Mapai/Labor party domination from the 50s through until the late 70s there was little need for electoral and political reform. Most of the country subscribed to the same political and social philosophies rendering moot any oppositional voices or calls for reform by sheer numbers and consensus.
It wasn’t until “the Revolution” of 1977 when Menachem Begin and his coalition of parties within the Likud was able to defeat the longstanding Labor alignment at the polls that the voices of reform could even hope to be heard over the majority. Yet, this still allowed only the barest possibility of change in the air as far as political reform was concerned. However, this development and others were very important to the reform movements.
The claim is that these background factors made the ground more fertile for reform and also supplied windows of opportunity that would ease its promotion. These background factors did not, in and of themselves, lead to reform and their value in terms of promoting reform was as a result of human action. (Rahat 2008, 113).
Thus, these factors of historic political importance helped to establish the circumstances necessary for future reforms to the political system. However, these factors would need to come together at just the right moment and be manipulated in just the right way for the reformers to have any chance of gaining enough support for their changes. “A survey of the pre-1988 period reveals that there were individual politicians and academics who considered government system reform. But no serious attempt was made to promote these ideas until the late 1980s.” (Rahat 2008, 127). It was necessary that numerous political situations and conditions converged at just the right moment to create the atmosphere necessary for the reforms to be enacted. These situations consisted of: 1- a divided and relatively equal political spectrum resulting in government stagnation, 2- the rising star of the smaller political parties (particularly the religious oriented parties) demanding and receiving disproportionate amounts of political power, 3- a rising degree of political “horse-trading” and corruption culminating in what has become known as the “filthy trick” of Israeli politics and 4- a serendipitously timed proposal by a number of academic elites.
A Divided Political Arena
The ascendency of the Likud to power produced an era characterized by a two-party dominated system. The Likud and Labor found themselves of near equal strength, requiring them to broker coalition deals with smaller representational parties within the Knesset in order to garner the support necessary to gain a majority and build a strong enough coalition government. This resulted in the system being “characterized by two large parties of similar size forming the nucleus of two party blocs. These two blocs, commonly labeled left and right, crystallized around the major cleavage dimension of security, peace and the future of the territories.” (Arian and Shamir 2001, 693). The Likud held a slight superiority within the political sphere, but it wasn’t enough to completely discredit Labor. “Only in the 1980s did the coalition system’s deficiencies preponderate. The party system became extremely polarized…The two blocs were distinctly divided by three major overlapping cleavages:” ethnicity, religiosity, and hawkishness. (Brichta 1998, 182-183). Generally speaking, the Likud was supported by the Sephardi, religious and hawkish voters, while the Labor drew from the Ashkenazi, secular doves. For many years during this period the two were so evenly matched that the only way out of stalemate were unity governments (1984-88, 1988-90). Because of this, the growing public opinion was that stalemate and stagnation as well as perceived notions of weakness and instability were the hallmarks of the Israeli Knesset and government. “Paradoxically, Israel did not suffer from excessive governmental instability before [the reform]. There was, however, a perception of instability because the fact that the two large political blocs were almost evenly matched seriously complicated the task of the prime minister in keeping the governing coalition together.” (Arian 2005, 219). The divided political arena helped create the political atmosphere necessary for the reform movement to gain steam and bring change.
The Rise of the Small Parties
This same era also saw the ascendency of the small parties within Israeli politics. “The bipolar system that had consolidated since 1977 gave small parties the power to be king-makers, to decide which of the large parties would govern.” The small parties that rode this position to the highest power and prominence were the religious parties, particularly the ultraorthodox who “exploited their pivotal position to promote religious legislation and enlarge the budgets for their communal religious institutions. Many saw them as cynical exploiters of the system” with an inordinate amount of power for such a small portion of the population.
This power though wasn’t absolute, as the religious parties held each other in check as well as having their power curbed by the unity government that existed through the late 1980s. Yet, “most of these restraints disappeared after the 1988 elections, when the ultraorthodox exclusively captured the pivotal position and won more seats than the [National Religious Party].” (Rahat 2008, 114). They held this position for two years, “increased their demands, competing with each other for more gains from the large parties. Many began to argue that dependence on such parties was actually ‘minority rule.’” (Rahat 2008, 114). Indeed, many “reformers used such events as a ‘proof’ of the pressing need to check the power of the ultraorthodox parties.” (Rahat 2008, 121). This public outcry in and of itself prompted reform attempts:
The demand for government reform was raised together with that for electoral reform. Nevertheless, there were already those who claimed that the remedy to the ultraorthodox’s blackmail power lay clearly with government system reform rather than electoral reform…These events prompted the submission of five different bills that proposed government system reform in December 1988-February 1989. (Rahat 2008, 116-117)
In 1990, this political situation and the public outcry over minority party power provided the political motivation for change and converged with a “dirty trick” to result in the conditions of “a perfect storm” leading to the passage of the reform.
A Dirty, Stinky, Filthy Trick
Members of the Labor party initiated the trick in order to shift the power balance back in their favor. The divided political spectrum with its two main blocs, as has been discussed, had led to a period of seeming stalemate, as neither bloc was able to gather enough votes and support to build a proper coalition. The result was the formation of unity governments.
The first of these unity governments lasted from 1984 until 1988 and was rather effective in dealing with national affairs. Most of its effectiveness though can be attributed to the fact that the government was placed in positions of danger “due to the need to deal with two major crises: the war in Lebanon, which had to be resolved quickly, and the containment of rampant inflation.” Once these crises were dealt with though, partisan politics reemerged and cooperation fell apart between the two parties. (Brichta 1998, 183).
The second national unity government (formed in 1988 after elections returned the same balanced powers to office) found no common ground on which to build a policy discussion. When it was confronted with a large problem, the holes of disagreement could not be patched. “Since this second national unity government was not based on an agreed-upon platform, immobility became its hallmark. Neither partner could agree on a common program to further the peace process and the government disintegrated.” (Brichta 1998, 183). The United States at the time was pressing forward with a distinct peace initiative, the details of which were not particularly well received by the Likud under PM Itshak Shamir. Shimon Peres, the leader of the Labor party saw an opportunity to reduce Likud power and oust the coalition.
Emboldened by “the Likud’s intransigent position toward the peace process” (Brichta 1998), Peres communicated with other willing parties in the Knesset about forming a labor led coalition.
Many signs indicated that Labor was going to vote against the Government in a no-confidence vote that was scheduled for mid-March 1990. Yet Labor intended to stay in the Government, since the defeat of Government would have made it impossible for the PM to fire his ministers and would thus allow Labor to be in a better bargaining position. However, Likud recognized the “trick”…and Shamir fired Peres, which led all of the remaining labor ministers to submit their resignations. (Rahat 2008, 117).
With the vote, Labor managed to persuade just enough votes to oust the Likud-led coalition, the first and only time an expression of no-confidence has been achieved. This victory though was hard won for Peres as he needed to pull all of the political stings at his disposal. Although the opposition consisted of “Labor, the Arabs, the left and the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel, the key to the ‘victory’ of Peres and Labor was the fact that five of the six Knesset members of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party absented themselves from the vote.” (Arian 2005, 228). Again, showing the power that the small parties, particularly the religious, had obtained by skillfully playing the large parties off one another.
That power though was just beginning to be wielded. With the Likud government ousted, Peres was given time to form his own Labor led coalition. “To succeed, [he] had to find Knesset members of the other camp who were willing to desert to the Labor side” (Arian 2005, 229) because the ultraorthodox parties “did not automatically join Labor to form a new Government, but instead opened negotiations with both large parties.” (Rahat 2008, 117). He failed in this attempt. “Peres thought he had enough votes. But his plans unraveled when two of the Aguda supporters bolted, despite the discipline that Aguda Knesset members had always demonstrated;” (Arian 2005, 229) he came up short and the opportunity was given back to Likud to from another government. Shamir was eventually able to form his own coalition, and Peres’ trick, labeled “stinky,” “dirty,” and “filthy” in the literature nowadays, backfired.
The entire crisis, with no official leadership for the country, lasted a total of three months, from March to June 1990. This crisis would play a significant role in the future of the reform debate and movement as it significantly illustrated the shortcomings and possible failures of the parliamentary system. Perhaps its most important effect though was the raising of public ire- “the notorious ‘filthy trick’ of Labor failed and bought about a major public outcry for the reform of the political system.” (Brichta 1998, 183). Because of the immobilization of the government for such a long period of time, the politicking and deal making was displayed to an ever more astonished public.
Ultra-Orthodox parties, other small factions, and individual MKs who defected from their parties tried to exploit the situation and made high demands in exchange for their support of either party. These demands included senior governmental and administrative posts, special budgets for affiliated institutions, and safe positions in the large parties’ lists in the next elections. This behavior resulted in public outrage since politics looked, more than ever, as if it was only about money and posts. (Rahat 2008, 117).
The public anger at such actions was impressive, as the common mob began clamoring more and more for political reform. Instead of being largely an issue that was reserved largely for academics and politicians to debate, the problems inherent in the Israeli political system had been put on display for the entire country to see. Yet the problems weren’t new.
In fact, the three-month crisis was unprecedented in only on sense: It starkly exposed the malfunctioning of the Israeli system of government and, more than ever before, made most Israelis aware of the problem. But almost everything that took place between March and June of 1990 had happened before: coalition horse trading; political blackmail and extortion by small extremist parties; shamelessly open political bribery; blatant and obsessive partisanship by the nation’s top policymakers; complete disregard for matters of national interest, such as the state of the economy or the absorption of Soviet Jews; and cynical and paternalistic attitudes toward the Israeli public. What was special about the 1990 spring crisis was that it happened on a larger and more intense scale. (Diamond and Sprinzak 1993, 362)
The public anger and mass response to the governmental failures provided the reform movement with the public support necessary to bring about change. “The pain that this crisis caused the Israeli polity served to accelerate mechanisms for change that were already in motion: a grass-roots movement advocating electoral and constitutional reform swelled in numbers.” (Hazan 1996, 24). Without this declared public support, reform would have been bogged down within the halls of a stalled political system or confined to the periphery of public conscience (as it had been for decades already): “The Stinky Trick…was exploited for the purpose of passing the direct election bills in preliminary and first readings, bringing it to the same legislative stage that electoral reform reached after years of struggle.” (Rahat 2008, 119).
Well-Timed Proposals
With all of these other situations coming into play at the same time, the reformers needed a single reform plan that could be adopted. Being aware of the need to please and appease multiple sections of the fractured and multifaceted Knesset, as well as the general public, the reformers needed to back a plan that would be, if not acceptable to all parties, at the least bearable, with enough offsetting promises to enable their support. What they found was a serendipitous plan for reform presented not too long before.
In 1987, a group of academics had undertaken to produce the same type of necessary reform to change the system for the better, in effect predicting the crisis that would wrack the country not many years later. These professors from the Tel Aviv University Law School put together a basic reform package consisting of three parts. The first was a proposed mixed electoral system. “They recommended that Israel be divided into 60 single-member constituencies and that the representatives be elected by a simple majority vote. The remaining 60 Knesset members would be elected from a nationwide list” by the PR system already in place, only modified to have a 2.5 percent threshold and a provision by which the number of their seats gained in the constituencies would be subtracted from that obtained in the PR election. (Brichta 1998, 185).
The second proposal was “the adoption of a written constitution, including a bill of rights, based on the blueprint of their unsolicited proposed constitution for the state of Israel.” The third reform that they put forth was direct election of the prime minister “which actually meant a transition from the existing parliamentary system to a mixed premier-parliamentary system.” (Brichta 1998, 185).
The proposal though wasn’t met by approval unanimously, even by those more reform minded. “The professors realized that their proposal the electoral system stood no chance of being passed in the Knesset because of the staunch opposition from the small and medium-sized parties, mainly the religious parties.” (Brichta 1998, 185). These smaller parties feared losing part or all of their representation in the Knesset with the higher threshold, and many other politicians feared that changing the system that drastically would jeopardize chances for reelection.
The second proposal, the written constitution and bill of rights, met with opposition as well. This issue has been contentious throughout Israel’s history, and was opposed mainly by the religious parties who maintain a distinct dislike of establishing such a liberal and “uninspired” document as a foundational document.
The only remaining element of their proposal was the direct election of the prime minister. “Direct election came to the fore, not as an aspect of fundamental electoral reform, but as an alternative to it—a second-best option to be pursued once the smaller parties had effectively vetoed any serious revision of PR.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 112, emphasis in original). This proposal was taken very seriously, and “consequently, four members of different parties agreed to combine their four different private member’s bills into one, calling for direct election of the prime minister.” (Brichta 1998, 185). This would prove a magnificent boon to the reformers as it allowed for the consolidation of their supporters and addition of new support.
This agreement enable reformers to exploit the window of opportunity, opened at the time of the Stinky Trick, to promote legislation as much as possible when there were disagreements on content. At later stages, in order to complete the reform move, reformers would have to gain majority support for one specific version. The “mixed” nature of the reform proposal proved especially helpful in achieving this goal. (Rahat 2008, 128-129).
The mix here refers to adding presidential elements to the parliamentary elements already in place. This mix added incredible power to the developing situation for the reformers by better allowing them to convince skeptical ministers to support their proposal.
This allowed them to present different faces of reform to those with different perceptions of the ideal structure of regime and to those with different, sometimes contradicting, interests…It was also flexible enough to enable shrewd and aggressive reform agents to ‘sell’ different, and even contradicting, versions of the anticipated consequences of reform…The two names of the proposed reform expressed its two faces. One, the direct election of the PM, was a reductionist and clearer label that implied that, after all, it was only a change in the way the PM was to be elected. The second, government system reform, was a name that implied a more general and radical change, but was more ambiguous in its content and could refer to various version of reform. (Rahat 2008, 129).
Thus the reformers were able to use this single element of the originally academic proposal to tap into the circumstances and present their reform initiative and agenda to the differing sides of Israeli politics “to garner support from people with opposing ideologies: from liberals who saw it as supporting…the principle of separation of powers, to authoritarians…who expected that the reform would lead to effective rule by a single strong leader.” (Rahat 2008, 136).
It all comes together…
The “perfect storm” necessary for the reformers to push their agenda came together very serendipitously for them. The reformers were able to make use of a multiplicity of events emerging at roughly the same time to gain the support and the reforms they wanted. The background context of the reform needed to fall into place precisely with an evenly divided political system that allowed for small middle-ground parties to obtain excessive amounts of power within the political structure. This allowed the political contradictions and problems within the system to come to the fore, not remaining hidden behind seemingly well working machinery. The central parties’ excessive deal making and “horse trading” to take advantage of the political situation exposed the extent of the corruption and unabashed violations of ethical arrangements that existed within the political elite to the public. This roused the anger of the public to a fever pitch that was fed more by the seeming minority control taken by the religious parties. The Stinking Trick of Peres was the final straw, bringing public opinion firmly into the reformers’ camp. The presence of a ready-made reform proposal that fit their needs of ambiguity and “sellability” simply completed the necessary prerequisites for their reform movement.
The reformers were able to put together all these factors into a cohesive push for reform.
The link between the solution (direct election of the PM) and the background factors was mainly a creation of the reformers. They used their great skill, as well as their allies inside the Knesset and their extensive resources, to highlight particular problems of the political system and channel dissatisfaction in the direction of the government system reform “solution” rather than any other alternative…The promoters of reform were important less in terms of coming up with the original idea, but rather in terms of transforming it from an abstract idea with no followers into a reform with substantial support, one that would induce others to invest resources in its promotion. If it was not for these promoters, this idea would have remained wishful thinking, and no one would even bother seeking its origins. (Rahat 2008, 127-128).
The reform promoters were simply responsible for exploiting the presence of these factors all at the same time and converting the powers of the mob, the academicians and the politicians into a cohesive and convincing proposal that they were able to drum up support for and pass through the Knesset on 18 March 1992.
Expectations
The reformers had a lot of reasons for the enacting direct election of the prime minister. Their intent was to change the political system for the better and make the governance of the country run more smoothly and less problematically or “to ameliorate a deteriorating political situation and increase governability in Israel.” (Hazan and Rahat 2000, 1318). Here we will discuss the direct intentions and hopes the reformers had for overcoming the problems that they saw in the political system. In general, the reformers “hoped to 1) strengthen the PM’s legitimacy with a direct voter mandate; 2) ensure that changes of government would come from popular voting; and 3) reduce the size, number and overall influence of smaller parties.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 112). The reformers believed that they could enact all of these changes simply by reforming the way that the PM was elected.
Strengthening the PM
The direct election of the prime minister was to enhance the powers and abilities of the PM. The reformers hoped “to strengthen the executive branch of the government by granting the prime minister the power to form a stable and effective government.” (Brichta 1998, 186). Following the stalemates and unity governments of the 1980s, where, despite intense negotiations, neither major party was able to establish a workable coalition, the reformers hoped to give the PM direct power to form his coalition. “Direct election…would give Israel’s prime minister the kind of legitimacy that the previous system simply did not provide, due to the fragmented nature of parliament” which had the responsibility of electing the prime minister. (Ottolenghi 2001, 114). The goal was to have the prime minister gain a direct mandate from the people – “The new system would return the choice of chief executive to the voters, which in itself held intrinsic democratic appeal, and would also grant the Prime Minister both a mandate and legitimacy.” (Hazan 1996, 28).
This new mandate was meant to strengthen the PM’s chances of forming a new coalition quickly, rallying the public behind him/her and creating greater unity within the Knesset and the country. Besides placing the mandate of the people behind the PM-elect, the hope was that designating who exactly the prime minister was would decrease the time necessary for inner-Knesset workings and politicking. The reformers “wished for it to be clear, as soon as the election results were tabulated, who would be prime minister and form the government…they wanted to eliminate the confusing interregnum between the elections and the formation of the government.” (Susser 1997, 238). Specifically, it was hoped that “the new system would free the prime minister from the extortionist demands of small parties and individual MKs when forming his cabinet.” (Brichta 1998, 186) and in turn “the prime minister would be relieved of the stressful pressures of intense and costly bargaining with medium-sized and smaller parties to form a coalition. Potential partners would have to cooperate with the directly-elected prime minister.” (Arian 2005, 219-220).
The MKs and various parties within the Knesset would be forced to either deal with the prime minister chosen by the people, or relegate themselves to the opposition. There would be no other choice for them. The PM was meant to be the only game in town, thereby allowing him/her to set the terms of the bargaining and decide who would serve where, instead of the small and medium sized parties declaring their terms for joining the coalition. “They wished to avoid the demoralizing spectacle of coalition-making parties abjectly prostrating themselves before their potential junior coalition partners – that is, making deals that were as hateful to themselves as they were to the vast majority of the electorate.” (Susser 1997, 239). This would also decrease the time necessary for coalition formation, eliminating the windows of governmental weakness between administrations. In short,
Direct Election of the prime minister, it was claimed, would alter the basic context in which coalitional negotiations take place. Since it is immediately clear who will be forming the government, the entire logic of capitulation would be avoided. Prime ministers would negotiate with their potential coalitional partners from a position of strength and exclusivity because there would be no other alternative open to the small parties. The dynamic of spiraling demands would be neutralized at the outset. (Susser 1997, 240).
Another change that was hoped for, which would cause greater unity in the country was that the new system of “majoritarian elections would help nurture and promote moderate candidates.” (Hazan 1996, 28). Based on the fact that the PM was to be elected popularly, the expectation was that the candidates would need to reach out to ever-greater numbers of voters, and could only accomplish this by moderating their rhetoric and platforms. “The shift toward the center was to be expected in the race for prime minister, since most two-candidate races are won due to the support of the moderate, undecided voters.” (Hazan 1999, 166).
Lastly, the reformers hoped that the reform would strengthen the executive branch to better its execution of policy. Citing certain historical evidences, perhaps the most prominent of which was the “failure of the Government in the absorption ‘of a large wave of new immigrants from the former USSR,” the hope was “that only direct election would enable government to be effective in its policy decisions and implementation” by forcing the Knesset to back a certain prime minister and adhere to his leadership. (Rahat 2008, 122).
Ensuring popular sentiment in Government change
Reform was also propagated as a tool to ensure that changes within the government would only happen with the approval of the general public—“[enshrining] the idea that a government must be always as much as possible a direct expression of popular will.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 115). In an effort to increase the democratic nature of politics, the reformers hoped to reduce governmental and legislative corruption and illegal practices. “Reformers used the various events that occurred during the Stinky Trick period as evidence of the need for government system reform, as a solution for corrupt government.” (Rahat 2008, 118).
Additionally, the reformers hoped to create a system of public control over change within the government and the Knesset. The reasoning was that establishing a link between Knesset and PM elections would ensure a “balance of terror” with each being able to dissolve the other. This would mean that neither side would seek to intentionally “rock the boat” in order to gain a small measure of power. This link would
plant in basic law the rule that the legislative branch and the now-to-be-directly-elected executive branch would have to enter and leave office at the same time. In other words, the new system required that any change of majority within the Knesset (something conceivable in the framework of a multiparty parliamentary system ruled by coalitions) be endorsed by popular vote. Moreover, the system transferred the power to choose a PM from the parties to the voting public, with parties relegated to the role of putting candidate forward to receive the popular verdict. (Ottolenghi 2001, 115).
Small party reduction
One of the more significant hopes of the reform was the decrease in the power, influence, size and number of the small parties that had been the “king-makers” of previous coalitions. The hegemonic powers that the these parties were seen to wield made sure that
the reformers hoped that the direct election of the prime minister would also reduce the size, number and influence of the smaller parties in the Knesset. That is, they hoped that a separate ballot for the prime minister, with its requirement of an absolute majority, would reduce the prime ministerial race to the two main parties and encourage “straight-ticket” voting in the ballot for the Knesset. (Hazan and Rahat 2000, 1318).
This “straight-ticket” voting was what came to be understood as the “coattails effect.” What was hoped was that “because winning the prime ministry would require winning an electoral majority…splintering of the vote would no longer be rational in terms of electoral and political success.” (Arian 2005, 220) The hope was that this would in turn decrease the number of parties in the Knesset (because people would be voting for the main two parties, both for prime minister as well as for Knesset representation) as well as reduce the number of the MKs from the small parties, and thus, “neutralizing the importance of the pivotal position that these parties had captured.” (Rahat 2008, 121).
An interesting paradox to the reform is that there was the effort to defragment the representation in the Knesset by deepening the schism between the two major parties. The reformers were attempting to make the elections a stark choice between two major parties while retaining the multiparty system- it was hoped that direct elections for the PM would “reduce the extreme multiparty nature of Israel’s party system by strengthening its incipient bipolarity, and reduce the disproportionate political power that had been attained by the small parties.” (Hazan 1996, 28).
Realities
The realities of the direct election experiment did not exactly follow the expectations expressed. In some cases, the reformers guessed right as to what the changes would bring, in others they missed the mark completely and their detractors were vindicated. In still other areas, the law of unintended consequences appeared and brought changes that were not predicted or expected by either camp.
Strengthening the Prime Minister?
While the reform did grant the winner of the PM race greater mandate from the people and greater legitimacy (in a sense), it failed to provide much else. “Being able to claim a direct popular mandate doubtless made the PM stronger, but party fragmentation continued to make this strength often more notional than real.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 114). This fragmentation was caused mainly by the split-ticket voting phenomenon (discussed below) that became the hallmark of the elections run under the direct election reform.
This fragmentation caused some serious problems for the elected prime ministers and the government in general. As the voters chose representational parties with their second vote (instead of the straight-ticket voting hoped for), the large parties found their majorities in the Knesset reduced significantly- “Neither side enjoyed a ‘coattail’ effect” (Ottolenghi 2001, 117) and “the prime minister-elect was weakened politically as the electoral base of his party declined, whereas the electoral strength of the small and sectarian parties increased.” (Nachmias and Navot 2002, 143).
Similarly, the change in the electoral process forced new aspects upon the parties and their candidates during the elections. As had been hoped for, there was a general shift towards a moderation of candidates for the premiership. This negatively impacted the candidates and their parties though. For the two large parties who were fielding candidates for the election
there was only one comprehensive campaign, not two and the race for prime minister prevailed…Both parties thought, correctly, that whoever won the contest for prime minister would be able to form a coalition in the Knesset…Thus, in order to win the more important race, the emphasis placed on the less important contest was not just diminished, it was almost nonexistent. Both Labor and Likud were willing to lose seats in the Knesset in order to win the prime ministership (sic). (Hazan 1999, 166-167).
The choice to focus solely on the prime minister race led the candidates to slowly separate themselves from their parties to expand their support base. They needed to adopt more broad and open language and rhetoric that was not based in party aims or policy and led the candidate a distance away from the party organization. The candidate was forced
to run a campaign unencumbered by his party’s ideological baggage, and the party was forced to back this campaign at the cost of both its representativeness (as presence) and its representation (as ideas) in the legislature. The result is a chief executive who is elected by a constituency quite different from that of his own party. However, after the election, the prime minister is forced to rely on his party as the core of the legislative coalition with which he must operate. (Hazan and Rahat 2000, 1329).
In addition to all this, the prime minister is also expected to make major payoffs to the increased number of parties and supporters necessary to form a coalition. “The person charged with forming the coalition had to bring together a greater number of diverse and competing interests while lacking the political resources that were available prior to the reform.” (Nachmias and Navot 2002, 143). This political weakening of the prime minister’s party ticket more than offset any powers, legitimacy or mandate that the reform hoped to grant him
The split-ticket phenomenon led to other problems for the reformers. Their original intents of stabilizing governments and decreasing government corruption by making the PM stronger, failed utterly: “the electoral reform strongly influenced the coalition-building process and the size of governments…multi-partner coalitions were formed, uncertainty over the stability of governments increased, office-related payoffs expanded and their distribution was characterized by increased disproportion.” (Nachmias and Navot 2002, 144).
In turn, the Knesset fragmentation following the reform failed as well with respect to the stated goal of preventing out-of-hand negotiations for coalition building such as happened in 1990. The number of days required in order to form a coalition after the election saw an overall increase from the 1992 election to the 2001 election. This means that it was harder and took more time to put together a workable government- “in short, the presence of a ‘clear winner’ PM whose prospective cabinet was ‘the only game in town’ did little or nothing to streamline coalition negotiations. Indeed, coalitions grew even bigger and more awkward.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 118).
All of the overall hopes of the reformers with regard to the prime minister and the executive branch proved to be false under the new system. In rather succinct language:
Rather than enhancing the capability of the prime minister to lead the cabinet and govern, the reform granted him formal authority that could not be translated into action. Instead of instituting a stable system of parliamentary checks and balances and accountable intra-party decision-making procedures, the direct elections for the prime minister created a system with no core political party in the Knesset, thus increasing the likelihood of government instability. The electoral reform diminished the power of the prime minister’s party and increased party fragmentation in the Knesset…Overall, the electoral reform seriously impaired the governance capabilities of both the executive and the legislature. (Nachmias and Navot 2002, 136).
Ensuring Public Involvement in Government Change?
This main intent of the reformers was the only of the three to actually be relatively achieved. By tying the elections of the Knesset and the PM together, and giving both the power to dissolve the other, any change that occurred in government also involved public input by virtue of the elections that would follow. However, this brought with it some unforeseen consequences.
Arranging matters such that any coalition crisis triggers elections can be a recipe for drift and paralysis as disparate coalition partners, united mainly by an urge to stay in power, settle on “not rocking the boat” as the best survival strategy. Thus direct election channeled power to the people and away from horse-trading elites, but at the cost of energy in the executive. (Ottolenghi 2001, 115, emphasis added).
Inadvertently, the reformers had created a situation that theoretically created the means for greater democratic sanction in government workings, but which contradicted their other stated goals of reducing governmental lag, instability and empowering the prime minister.
Decreasing Small Parties?
The area in which the reform for direct elections failed most completely in comparison to the hopes and intents of the reformers was the decreasing of size, influence and number of small political parties. Despite their intentions to remove the smaller parties from the position of coalition “king-maker” and make them subservient to the larger parties, “the new system…significantly increased the bargaining power of the small, medium-sized, and religious parties.” (Brichta 1998, 190).
The largest contributor to this fact was the split-ticket phenomenon. Previous to the reform, Israeli voters were allowed simply one vote for the party of their choice. The party that would receive the most votes proportionately would generally be asked to form the governing coalition. Knowing this forced the voters many times to deliberately vote strategically for the main party in their preferred Knesset bloc instead of voting for a smaller party that might fit their political preferences better. This was done to increase the chances of the bloc that they preferred forming the coalition and including the party that they preferred most in the coalition. The changes that the reform brought dramatically changed this rational.
The incentive to vote for the largest party in the Knesset bloc disappeared. Voters could now vote for both the candidate they preferred for prime minister and the party with whose platform they most closely identified without worrying that their votes might facilitate the formation of a government by the competing bloc. The inevitable outcome was a sharp increase in the electoral strength of small and medium-sized parties at the expense of Labor and Likud. (Nachmias and Navot 2002, 142).
This ticket splitting first appeared in the 1996 election, but was exhibited in even greater numbers in the 1999 election as the public became more aware of the new changes. (Arieli-Horowitz 2002). “This sophisticated use of the ballot box by the Israeli voter left in its wake a party system in shambles, and a Knesset fractionalized and weakened compared to the prime minister and the executive branch.” (Arian 2005, 220).
From all of this we see that the size and number of center parties and small parties grew significantly. Empirically, it has been seen that “the number of so-called center parties, which are ready to join any winner of the PM race, rose from three (with a total of 16 seats) to six (with 38 seats in all).” Similarly, religious parties, which had 16 seats in 1992, rose to obtain 23 in the elections of 1996 and then 27 in ’99. (Ottolenghi 2001, 118).
The negotiation powers of the small parties also were strengthened. Kenig, Rahat and Hazan summarize the enlarged abilities of the smaller parties with regard to getting their way in negotiations:
After the direct elections were introduced, the smaller parties enjoyed greater blackmail potential. They could adopt a range of tactics, from threatening to run their own candidates for the prime minster—leading to a split in the votes of the camp as a whole—to calling on their voters to support one of the two candidates for the position of prime minister, or refraining from doing so. Accordingly, the major parties had a clear incentive not to arouse the wrath of their potential coalition partners. Small parties benefited twice from this situation: on the one hand they could concentrate on urging voters to choose them in the party vote, without needing to adopt any stance in the majoritarian contest, while on the other hand they were protected from attacks by the major parties. (Kenig, Rahat and Hazan 2005, 46).
It became clear quickly that the reformers had overstated the ability of the reform to curb the power of the small parties. Despite the reform, and even more so because of it “partisan dynamics and the stern arithmetic of coalition maintenance often forced [the PM] to dance to the smaller parties’ tunes.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 118).
Unintended Consequences:
From the split-voting phenomenon, we can also see an unanticipated backlash against the hoped-for moderating and central pulling effect that the reform caused with relation to the election of the prime minister. “Direct election did in fact foster a centripetal trend, but only in voting for prime minister.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 116, emphasis in original). Having seen how “the two way contest obliged both the Labor Party and the Likud…to blur their positions and move toward the political center in an effort to convince as many floating voters as possible to vote for them,” here we see the voters moving the opposite way because as “this blurring of position was essential in the elections for the prime minister, it served only to encourage voters to give their second vote to those parties which presented a distinct identity.” (Kenig, Rahat and Hazan 2005, 42). Just as centripetal forces had moved the two largest parties together to capture more votes for PM, centrifugal forces moved the voters outward with their second vote for the Knesset. Thus, we can see the failure of the attempt to attenuate the bipolarity of the system and reduce the power of the small parties. “The result of the electoral reforms is therefore not the strengthening of the incipient bipolarization of Israeli politics but rather its breakdown and Balkanization.” (Hazan and Rahat 2000, 1327).
This breakdown and fragmentation within the Knesset resulted in a large-scale decrease in overall governability.
The electoral reform in Israel produced a party system characterized by the prevalence of centripetal drives at one level of competition—and governance—and centrifugal drives at another level. This simultaneous occurrence produced concurrent moderating and polarizing consequences, which is one of the main reasons for the reduction in government stability. (Hazan and Rahat 2000, 1324).
These forces caused the job of the prime minister to become much harder. The fragmentation of both the Knesset and the subsequent coalition that the PM was forced to make because of such low representation from his party caused the PM to take a permanent role in smoothing ruffled feathers and agreement troubles with all the disparate groups within the government. “The sheer cost—in time, trouble, and state funds—of holding disparate coalition governments together sapped the executive’s ability to tackle pressing political issues.” Under such conditions, “a stable coalition is essentially beyond the reach of even the cleverest and most energetic prime minister.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 118-119).
Conclusion: Repealing the Changes
After less than a decade in operation, the direct election reform was repealed by the Knesset. The stated hopes of the reformers to strengthen the executive branch, introduce greater democratic process and involvement in the system and reduce the power, influence and size of the small parties in the Knesset were dashed as the reform provided for only one of the goals, the introduction of greater public involvement into government change, and that rather weakly and with accompanying unintended problems.
Repealing the ineffective reforms wasn’t enough though, because all could agree that the way the system had worked previous to their passage was not acceptable. Therefore, the parliament enacted some additional changes upon changing the system back: they introduced a constructive vote of no-confidence, and required a majority vote for it within the body of the legislature. They also retained the PM’s power to dismiss the Knesset to retain a check on the power of the small parties.
The direct election of the Prime Minister had been a genuine attempt to change the overall system of Israeli politics. Pulling together skillfully the convergence of numerous historical event chains, the reformers were able to combine the power of the public mob to override political renitence for change (even though the real reform necessary, PR reform, was still untouchable). This wave of public opinion was encouraged and ridden to the end that politician concerns for the system were both allayed and addressed by the adoption of a plan produced by the academic elite. Bringing together these disparate and often contradictory sections of society, “the reform had hoped to achieve the same results that a less proportional electoral system would have produced,” but which had proved too radical of a change to drive through the already fractionalized Knesset. (Ottolenghi 2001, 119). However, the brief experiment with reform has proved that “direct election had amplified political fragmentation and created a system that condemned the PM to inaction and ineffectiveness, and the country to chronic political instability and frequent elections.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 120). Despite their best intentions, the reformers zealous pursuit of reform for the sake of reform, led them to blindly stumble into a maze of worsening political considerations.
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The History and Outcome of Israel’s Experiment with Direct Democracy
Andrew C. Smith
Hebrew University
Seminar Paper
Social and Political History of Israel
Simon Epstein
Spring 2009
Introduction
The 1990s witnessed a blossoming of new direct democracy trends throughout the world. From referendum to institutional change, it seemed that a fever gripped the world in an attempt to overcome intermediary governmental mechanisms separating the people from their governments. (Scarrow 2001). This direct democracy suggested a new era in politics in many democratic countries and was hailed by some as a great historic change. This was especially true within Israel.
In 1992, the Israeli Knesset enacted a new law governing the electoral process “which calls for the direct election of the prime minister.” This reform was the result of decades of struggle against the electoral and political norms that had been instituted in the late 40s and 50s and brought with it “a dramatic change in the competitive electoral orientation of the Israeli party system.” (Hazan 1999, 163). To be first tested in the elections of 1996, the new system created a new paradigm of democratic governance:
The Israeli case is a synthesis of both parliamentary and presidential regime types, in which the elements are equally balanced, and not a fluctuation between the prevalence of one over the other. Israel, therefore, is no longer purely parliamentary and has not become purely presidential nor semi-presidential. In other words, as of the 1996 elections Israel became an institutionally unique and hybrid type of political regime. (Hazan 1999, 165).
The new system failed: less than a decade later, the reform was repealed. For those who viewed reform as vital to the success of the state, this failure represented a chilling moment. Many had tried for decades to bring about the change that they sought, and after finding the “perfect storm” needed to bring about reform, it was found to be lacking in many regards.
This paper will discuss the history of the reform attempts and the events immediately prior to the passing of direct election. It will cover the major changes that were enacted and their effects. Particularly, it will discuss the expectations of the reforms, their claims, hopes and reasons for choosing the type of reform they did, as well as the realities that stemmed from the reform and the resulting consequences of the reform experiment on the Israeli political and electoral system.
History
The history of attempted reform in the Israeli state dates nearly to the establishment of the state. Certain aspects of the political, and particularly the electoral, system have begged reform since the earliest days of the late 40s and early 50s. Some of the aspects of the electoral system that particularly were targets for change were the extreme proportional representation system wherein the polity itself stood as a single district and the extremely low electoral threshold (originally at 1%, but which has been raised a number of times until today when it stands at 2%). Within the political system one of the most debated issues of reform is that of enacting a fully written constitution to better define the processes, powers and politics of the state.
A number of proposals have been heard in the Knesset for the “correcting” of these issues. Ben Gurion himself wished “to replace the nationwide party-list PR system with a simple majority (winner-takes-all) system, based on the British model of single-member constituencies.” (Brichta 1998, 184). This initial proposal has been followed through the years by many more attempts.
The failed proposals encompassed practically every possible form of change, including: single-member constituencies; multi-member constituencies, with and without national pools; the single-transferable vote; thresholds of up to 10 per cent; a reduction in the number of MKs; and even proposals for a presidential system. (Hazan 1996, 24).
None of these major reforms made it very far within the Knesset. The political makeup of the state can be said to account for this failure as far as the first decades of its history are concerned. With the Mapai/Labor party domination from the 50s through until the late 70s there was little need for electoral and political reform. Most of the country subscribed to the same political and social philosophies rendering moot any oppositional voices or calls for reform by sheer numbers and consensus.
It wasn’t until “the Revolution” of 1977 when Menachem Begin and his coalition of parties within the Likud was able to defeat the longstanding Labor alignment at the polls that the voices of reform could even hope to be heard over the majority. Yet, this still allowed only the barest possibility of change in the air as far as political reform was concerned. However, this development and others were very important to the reform movements.
The claim is that these background factors made the ground more fertile for reform and also supplied windows of opportunity that would ease its promotion. These background factors did not, in and of themselves, lead to reform and their value in terms of promoting reform was as a result of human action. (Rahat 2008, 113).
Thus, these factors of historic political importance helped to establish the circumstances necessary for future reforms to the political system. However, these factors would need to come together at just the right moment and be manipulated in just the right way for the reformers to have any chance of gaining enough support for their changes. “A survey of the pre-1988 period reveals that there were individual politicians and academics who considered government system reform. But no serious attempt was made to promote these ideas until the late 1980s.” (Rahat 2008, 127). It was necessary that numerous political situations and conditions converged at just the right moment to create the atmosphere necessary for the reforms to be enacted. These situations consisted of: 1- a divided and relatively equal political spectrum resulting in government stagnation, 2- the rising star of the smaller political parties (particularly the religious oriented parties) demanding and receiving disproportionate amounts of political power, 3- a rising degree of political “horse-trading” and corruption culminating in what has become known as the “filthy trick” of Israeli politics and 4- a serendipitously timed proposal by a number of academic elites.
A Divided Political Arena
The ascendency of the Likud to power produced an era characterized by a two-party dominated system. The Likud and Labor found themselves of near equal strength, requiring them to broker coalition deals with smaller representational parties within the Knesset in order to garner the support necessary to gain a majority and build a strong enough coalition government. This resulted in the system being “characterized by two large parties of similar size forming the nucleus of two party blocs. These two blocs, commonly labeled left and right, crystallized around the major cleavage dimension of security, peace and the future of the territories.” (Arian and Shamir 2001, 693). The Likud held a slight superiority within the political sphere, but it wasn’t enough to completely discredit Labor. “Only in the 1980s did the coalition system’s deficiencies preponderate. The party system became extremely polarized…The two blocs were distinctly divided by three major overlapping cleavages:” ethnicity, religiosity, and hawkishness. (Brichta 1998, 182-183). Generally speaking, the Likud was supported by the Sephardi, religious and hawkish voters, while the Labor drew from the Ashkenazi, secular doves. For many years during this period the two were so evenly matched that the only way out of stalemate were unity governments (1984-88, 1988-90). Because of this, the growing public opinion was that stalemate and stagnation as well as perceived notions of weakness and instability were the hallmarks of the Israeli Knesset and government. “Paradoxically, Israel did not suffer from excessive governmental instability before [the reform]. There was, however, a perception of instability because the fact that the two large political blocs were almost evenly matched seriously complicated the task of the prime minister in keeping the governing coalition together.” (Arian 2005, 219). The divided political arena helped create the political atmosphere necessary for the reform movement to gain steam and bring change.
The Rise of the Small Parties
This same era also saw the ascendency of the small parties within Israeli politics. “The bipolar system that had consolidated since 1977 gave small parties the power to be king-makers, to decide which of the large parties would govern.” The small parties that rode this position to the highest power and prominence were the religious parties, particularly the ultraorthodox who “exploited their pivotal position to promote religious legislation and enlarge the budgets for their communal religious institutions. Many saw them as cynical exploiters of the system” with an inordinate amount of power for such a small portion of the population.
This power though wasn’t absolute, as the religious parties held each other in check as well as having their power curbed by the unity government that existed through the late 1980s. Yet, “most of these restraints disappeared after the 1988 elections, when the ultraorthodox exclusively captured the pivotal position and won more seats than the [National Religious Party].” (Rahat 2008, 114). They held this position for two years, “increased their demands, competing with each other for more gains from the large parties. Many began to argue that dependence on such parties was actually ‘minority rule.’” (Rahat 2008, 114). Indeed, many “reformers used such events as a ‘proof’ of the pressing need to check the power of the ultraorthodox parties.” (Rahat 2008, 121). This public outcry in and of itself prompted reform attempts:
The demand for government reform was raised together with that for electoral reform. Nevertheless, there were already those who claimed that the remedy to the ultraorthodox’s blackmail power lay clearly with government system reform rather than electoral reform…These events prompted the submission of five different bills that proposed government system reform in December 1988-February 1989. (Rahat 2008, 116-117)
In 1990, this political situation and the public outcry over minority party power provided the political motivation for change and converged with a “dirty trick” to result in the conditions of “a perfect storm” leading to the passage of the reform.
A Dirty, Stinky, Filthy Trick
Members of the Labor party initiated the trick in order to shift the power balance back in their favor. The divided political spectrum with its two main blocs, as has been discussed, had led to a period of seeming stalemate, as neither bloc was able to gather enough votes and support to build a proper coalition. The result was the formation of unity governments.
The first of these unity governments lasted from 1984 until 1988 and was rather effective in dealing with national affairs. Most of its effectiveness though can be attributed to the fact that the government was placed in positions of danger “due to the need to deal with two major crises: the war in Lebanon, which had to be resolved quickly, and the containment of rampant inflation.” Once these crises were dealt with though, partisan politics reemerged and cooperation fell apart between the two parties. (Brichta 1998, 183).
The second national unity government (formed in 1988 after elections returned the same balanced powers to office) found no common ground on which to build a policy discussion. When it was confronted with a large problem, the holes of disagreement could not be patched. “Since this second national unity government was not based on an agreed-upon platform, immobility became its hallmark. Neither partner could agree on a common program to further the peace process and the government disintegrated.” (Brichta 1998, 183). The United States at the time was pressing forward with a distinct peace initiative, the details of which were not particularly well received by the Likud under PM Itshak Shamir. Shimon Peres, the leader of the Labor party saw an opportunity to reduce Likud power and oust the coalition.
Emboldened by “the Likud’s intransigent position toward the peace process” (Brichta 1998), Peres communicated with other willing parties in the Knesset about forming a labor led coalition.
Many signs indicated that Labor was going to vote against the Government in a no-confidence vote that was scheduled for mid-March 1990. Yet Labor intended to stay in the Government, since the defeat of Government would have made it impossible for the PM to fire his ministers and would thus allow Labor to be in a better bargaining position. However, Likud recognized the “trick”…and Shamir fired Peres, which led all of the remaining labor ministers to submit their resignations. (Rahat 2008, 117).
With the vote, Labor managed to persuade just enough votes to oust the Likud-led coalition, the first and only time an expression of no-confidence has been achieved. This victory though was hard won for Peres as he needed to pull all of the political stings at his disposal. Although the opposition consisted of “Labor, the Arabs, the left and the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel, the key to the ‘victory’ of Peres and Labor was the fact that five of the six Knesset members of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party absented themselves from the vote.” (Arian 2005, 228). Again, showing the power that the small parties, particularly the religious, had obtained by skillfully playing the large parties off one another.
That power though was just beginning to be wielded. With the Likud government ousted, Peres was given time to form his own Labor led coalition. “To succeed, [he] had to find Knesset members of the other camp who were willing to desert to the Labor side” (Arian 2005, 229) because the ultraorthodox parties “did not automatically join Labor to form a new Government, but instead opened negotiations with both large parties.” (Rahat 2008, 117). He failed in this attempt. “Peres thought he had enough votes. But his plans unraveled when two of the Aguda supporters bolted, despite the discipline that Aguda Knesset members had always demonstrated;” (Arian 2005, 229) he came up short and the opportunity was given back to Likud to from another government. Shamir was eventually able to form his own coalition, and Peres’ trick, labeled “stinky,” “dirty,” and “filthy” in the literature nowadays, backfired.
The entire crisis, with no official leadership for the country, lasted a total of three months, from March to June 1990. This crisis would play a significant role in the future of the reform debate and movement as it significantly illustrated the shortcomings and possible failures of the parliamentary system. Perhaps its most important effect though was the raising of public ire- “the notorious ‘filthy trick’ of Labor failed and bought about a major public outcry for the reform of the political system.” (Brichta 1998, 183). Because of the immobilization of the government for such a long period of time, the politicking and deal making was displayed to an ever more astonished public.
Ultra-Orthodox parties, other small factions, and individual MKs who defected from their parties tried to exploit the situation and made high demands in exchange for their support of either party. These demands included senior governmental and administrative posts, special budgets for affiliated institutions, and safe positions in the large parties’ lists in the next elections. This behavior resulted in public outrage since politics looked, more than ever, as if it was only about money and posts. (Rahat 2008, 117).
The public anger at such actions was impressive, as the common mob began clamoring more and more for political reform. Instead of being largely an issue that was reserved largely for academics and politicians to debate, the problems inherent in the Israeli political system had been put on display for the entire country to see. Yet the problems weren’t new.
In fact, the three-month crisis was unprecedented in only on sense: It starkly exposed the malfunctioning of the Israeli system of government and, more than ever before, made most Israelis aware of the problem. But almost everything that took place between March and June of 1990 had happened before: coalition horse trading; political blackmail and extortion by small extremist parties; shamelessly open political bribery; blatant and obsessive partisanship by the nation’s top policymakers; complete disregard for matters of national interest, such as the state of the economy or the absorption of Soviet Jews; and cynical and paternalistic attitudes toward the Israeli public. What was special about the 1990 spring crisis was that it happened on a larger and more intense scale. (Diamond and Sprinzak 1993, 362)
The public anger and mass response to the governmental failures provided the reform movement with the public support necessary to bring about change. “The pain that this crisis caused the Israeli polity served to accelerate mechanisms for change that were already in motion: a grass-roots movement advocating electoral and constitutional reform swelled in numbers.” (Hazan 1996, 24). Without this declared public support, reform would have been bogged down within the halls of a stalled political system or confined to the periphery of public conscience (as it had been for decades already): “The Stinky Trick…was exploited for the purpose of passing the direct election bills in preliminary and first readings, bringing it to the same legislative stage that electoral reform reached after years of struggle.” (Rahat 2008, 119).
Well-Timed Proposals
With all of these other situations coming into play at the same time, the reformers needed a single reform plan that could be adopted. Being aware of the need to please and appease multiple sections of the fractured and multifaceted Knesset, as well as the general public, the reformers needed to back a plan that would be, if not acceptable to all parties, at the least bearable, with enough offsetting promises to enable their support. What they found was a serendipitous plan for reform presented not too long before.
In 1987, a group of academics had undertaken to produce the same type of necessary reform to change the system for the better, in effect predicting the crisis that would wrack the country not many years later. These professors from the Tel Aviv University Law School put together a basic reform package consisting of three parts. The first was a proposed mixed electoral system. “They recommended that Israel be divided into 60 single-member constituencies and that the representatives be elected by a simple majority vote. The remaining 60 Knesset members would be elected from a nationwide list” by the PR system already in place, only modified to have a 2.5 percent threshold and a provision by which the number of their seats gained in the constituencies would be subtracted from that obtained in the PR election. (Brichta 1998, 185).
The second proposal was “the adoption of a written constitution, including a bill of rights, based on the blueprint of their unsolicited proposed constitution for the state of Israel.” The third reform that they put forth was direct election of the prime minister “which actually meant a transition from the existing parliamentary system to a mixed premier-parliamentary system.” (Brichta 1998, 185).
The proposal though wasn’t met by approval unanimously, even by those more reform minded. “The professors realized that their proposal the electoral system stood no chance of being passed in the Knesset because of the staunch opposition from the small and medium-sized parties, mainly the religious parties.” (Brichta 1998, 185). These smaller parties feared losing part or all of their representation in the Knesset with the higher threshold, and many other politicians feared that changing the system that drastically would jeopardize chances for reelection.
The second proposal, the written constitution and bill of rights, met with opposition as well. This issue has been contentious throughout Israel’s history, and was opposed mainly by the religious parties who maintain a distinct dislike of establishing such a liberal and “uninspired” document as a foundational document.
The only remaining element of their proposal was the direct election of the prime minister. “Direct election came to the fore, not as an aspect of fundamental electoral reform, but as an alternative to it—a second-best option to be pursued once the smaller parties had effectively vetoed any serious revision of PR.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 112, emphasis in original). This proposal was taken very seriously, and “consequently, four members of different parties agreed to combine their four different private member’s bills into one, calling for direct election of the prime minister.” (Brichta 1998, 185). This would prove a magnificent boon to the reformers as it allowed for the consolidation of their supporters and addition of new support.
This agreement enable reformers to exploit the window of opportunity, opened at the time of the Stinky Trick, to promote legislation as much as possible when there were disagreements on content. At later stages, in order to complete the reform move, reformers would have to gain majority support for one specific version. The “mixed” nature of the reform proposal proved especially helpful in achieving this goal. (Rahat 2008, 128-129).
The mix here refers to adding presidential elements to the parliamentary elements already in place. This mix added incredible power to the developing situation for the reformers by better allowing them to convince skeptical ministers to support their proposal.
This allowed them to present different faces of reform to those with different perceptions of the ideal structure of regime and to those with different, sometimes contradicting, interests…It was also flexible enough to enable shrewd and aggressive reform agents to ‘sell’ different, and even contradicting, versions of the anticipated consequences of reform…The two names of the proposed reform expressed its two faces. One, the direct election of the PM, was a reductionist and clearer label that implied that, after all, it was only a change in the way the PM was to be elected. The second, government system reform, was a name that implied a more general and radical change, but was more ambiguous in its content and could refer to various version of reform. (Rahat 2008, 129).
Thus the reformers were able to use this single element of the originally academic proposal to tap into the circumstances and present their reform initiative and agenda to the differing sides of Israeli politics “to garner support from people with opposing ideologies: from liberals who saw it as supporting…the principle of separation of powers, to authoritarians…who expected that the reform would lead to effective rule by a single strong leader.” (Rahat 2008, 136).
It all comes together…
The “perfect storm” necessary for the reformers to push their agenda came together very serendipitously for them. The reformers were able to make use of a multiplicity of events emerging at roughly the same time to gain the support and the reforms they wanted. The background context of the reform needed to fall into place precisely with an evenly divided political system that allowed for small middle-ground parties to obtain excessive amounts of power within the political structure. This allowed the political contradictions and problems within the system to come to the fore, not remaining hidden behind seemingly well working machinery. The central parties’ excessive deal making and “horse trading” to take advantage of the political situation exposed the extent of the corruption and unabashed violations of ethical arrangements that existed within the political elite to the public. This roused the anger of the public to a fever pitch that was fed more by the seeming minority control taken by the religious parties. The Stinking Trick of Peres was the final straw, bringing public opinion firmly into the reformers’ camp. The presence of a ready-made reform proposal that fit their needs of ambiguity and “sellability” simply completed the necessary prerequisites for their reform movement.
The reformers were able to put together all these factors into a cohesive push for reform.
The link between the solution (direct election of the PM) and the background factors was mainly a creation of the reformers. They used their great skill, as well as their allies inside the Knesset and their extensive resources, to highlight particular problems of the political system and channel dissatisfaction in the direction of the government system reform “solution” rather than any other alternative…The promoters of reform were important less in terms of coming up with the original idea, but rather in terms of transforming it from an abstract idea with no followers into a reform with substantial support, one that would induce others to invest resources in its promotion. If it was not for these promoters, this idea would have remained wishful thinking, and no one would even bother seeking its origins. (Rahat 2008, 127-128).
The reform promoters were simply responsible for exploiting the presence of these factors all at the same time and converting the powers of the mob, the academicians and the politicians into a cohesive and convincing proposal that they were able to drum up support for and pass through the Knesset on 18 March 1992.
Expectations
The reformers had a lot of reasons for the enacting direct election of the prime minister. Their intent was to change the political system for the better and make the governance of the country run more smoothly and less problematically or “to ameliorate a deteriorating political situation and increase governability in Israel.” (Hazan and Rahat 2000, 1318). Here we will discuss the direct intentions and hopes the reformers had for overcoming the problems that they saw in the political system. In general, the reformers “hoped to 1) strengthen the PM’s legitimacy with a direct voter mandate; 2) ensure that changes of government would come from popular voting; and 3) reduce the size, number and overall influence of smaller parties.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 112). The reformers believed that they could enact all of these changes simply by reforming the way that the PM was elected.
Strengthening the PM
The direct election of the prime minister was to enhance the powers and abilities of the PM. The reformers hoped “to strengthen the executive branch of the government by granting the prime minister the power to form a stable and effective government.” (Brichta 1998, 186). Following the stalemates and unity governments of the 1980s, where, despite intense negotiations, neither major party was able to establish a workable coalition, the reformers hoped to give the PM direct power to form his coalition. “Direct election…would give Israel’s prime minister the kind of legitimacy that the previous system simply did not provide, due to the fragmented nature of parliament” which had the responsibility of electing the prime minister. (Ottolenghi 2001, 114). The goal was to have the prime minister gain a direct mandate from the people – “The new system would return the choice of chief executive to the voters, which in itself held intrinsic democratic appeal, and would also grant the Prime Minister both a mandate and legitimacy.” (Hazan 1996, 28).
This new mandate was meant to strengthen the PM’s chances of forming a new coalition quickly, rallying the public behind him/her and creating greater unity within the Knesset and the country. Besides placing the mandate of the people behind the PM-elect, the hope was that designating who exactly the prime minister was would decrease the time necessary for inner-Knesset workings and politicking. The reformers “wished for it to be clear, as soon as the election results were tabulated, who would be prime minister and form the government…they wanted to eliminate the confusing interregnum between the elections and the formation of the government.” (Susser 1997, 238). Specifically, it was hoped that “the new system would free the prime minister from the extortionist demands of small parties and individual MKs when forming his cabinet.” (Brichta 1998, 186) and in turn “the prime minister would be relieved of the stressful pressures of intense and costly bargaining with medium-sized and smaller parties to form a coalition. Potential partners would have to cooperate with the directly-elected prime minister.” (Arian 2005, 219-220).
The MKs and various parties within the Knesset would be forced to either deal with the prime minister chosen by the people, or relegate themselves to the opposition. There would be no other choice for them. The PM was meant to be the only game in town, thereby allowing him/her to set the terms of the bargaining and decide who would serve where, instead of the small and medium sized parties declaring their terms for joining the coalition. “They wished to avoid the demoralizing spectacle of coalition-making parties abjectly prostrating themselves before their potential junior coalition partners – that is, making deals that were as hateful to themselves as they were to the vast majority of the electorate.” (Susser 1997, 239). This would also decrease the time necessary for coalition formation, eliminating the windows of governmental weakness between administrations. In short,
Direct Election of the prime minister, it was claimed, would alter the basic context in which coalitional negotiations take place. Since it is immediately clear who will be forming the government, the entire logic of capitulation would be avoided. Prime ministers would negotiate with their potential coalitional partners from a position of strength and exclusivity because there would be no other alternative open to the small parties. The dynamic of spiraling demands would be neutralized at the outset. (Susser 1997, 240).
Another change that was hoped for, which would cause greater unity in the country was that the new system of “majoritarian elections would help nurture and promote moderate candidates.” (Hazan 1996, 28). Based on the fact that the PM was to be elected popularly, the expectation was that the candidates would need to reach out to ever-greater numbers of voters, and could only accomplish this by moderating their rhetoric and platforms. “The shift toward the center was to be expected in the race for prime minister, since most two-candidate races are won due to the support of the moderate, undecided voters.” (Hazan 1999, 166).
Lastly, the reformers hoped that the reform would strengthen the executive branch to better its execution of policy. Citing certain historical evidences, perhaps the most prominent of which was the “failure of the Government in the absorption ‘of a large wave of new immigrants from the former USSR,” the hope was “that only direct election would enable government to be effective in its policy decisions and implementation” by forcing the Knesset to back a certain prime minister and adhere to his leadership. (Rahat 2008, 122).
Ensuring popular sentiment in Government change
Reform was also propagated as a tool to ensure that changes within the government would only happen with the approval of the general public—“[enshrining] the idea that a government must be always as much as possible a direct expression of popular will.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 115). In an effort to increase the democratic nature of politics, the reformers hoped to reduce governmental and legislative corruption and illegal practices. “Reformers used the various events that occurred during the Stinky Trick period as evidence of the need for government system reform, as a solution for corrupt government.” (Rahat 2008, 118).
Additionally, the reformers hoped to create a system of public control over change within the government and the Knesset. The reasoning was that establishing a link between Knesset and PM elections would ensure a “balance of terror” with each being able to dissolve the other. This would mean that neither side would seek to intentionally “rock the boat” in order to gain a small measure of power. This link would
plant in basic law the rule that the legislative branch and the now-to-be-directly-elected executive branch would have to enter and leave office at the same time. In other words, the new system required that any change of majority within the Knesset (something conceivable in the framework of a multiparty parliamentary system ruled by coalitions) be endorsed by popular vote. Moreover, the system transferred the power to choose a PM from the parties to the voting public, with parties relegated to the role of putting candidate forward to receive the popular verdict. (Ottolenghi 2001, 115).
Small party reduction
One of the more significant hopes of the reform was the decrease in the power, influence, size and number of the small parties that had been the “king-makers” of previous coalitions. The hegemonic powers that the these parties were seen to wield made sure that
the reformers hoped that the direct election of the prime minister would also reduce the size, number and influence of the smaller parties in the Knesset. That is, they hoped that a separate ballot for the prime minister, with its requirement of an absolute majority, would reduce the prime ministerial race to the two main parties and encourage “straight-ticket” voting in the ballot for the Knesset. (Hazan and Rahat 2000, 1318).
This “straight-ticket” voting was what came to be understood as the “coattails effect.” What was hoped was that “because winning the prime ministry would require winning an electoral majority…splintering of the vote would no longer be rational in terms of electoral and political success.” (Arian 2005, 220) The hope was that this would in turn decrease the number of parties in the Knesset (because people would be voting for the main two parties, both for prime minister as well as for Knesset representation) as well as reduce the number of the MKs from the small parties, and thus, “neutralizing the importance of the pivotal position that these parties had captured.” (Rahat 2008, 121).
An interesting paradox to the reform is that there was the effort to defragment the representation in the Knesset by deepening the schism between the two major parties. The reformers were attempting to make the elections a stark choice between two major parties while retaining the multiparty system- it was hoped that direct elections for the PM would “reduce the extreme multiparty nature of Israel’s party system by strengthening its incipient bipolarity, and reduce the disproportionate political power that had been attained by the small parties.” (Hazan 1996, 28).
Realities
The realities of the direct election experiment did not exactly follow the expectations expressed. In some cases, the reformers guessed right as to what the changes would bring, in others they missed the mark completely and their detractors were vindicated. In still other areas, the law of unintended consequences appeared and brought changes that were not predicted or expected by either camp.
Strengthening the Prime Minister?
While the reform did grant the winner of the PM race greater mandate from the people and greater legitimacy (in a sense), it failed to provide much else. “Being able to claim a direct popular mandate doubtless made the PM stronger, but party fragmentation continued to make this strength often more notional than real.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 114). This fragmentation was caused mainly by the split-ticket voting phenomenon (discussed below) that became the hallmark of the elections run under the direct election reform.
This fragmentation caused some serious problems for the elected prime ministers and the government in general. As the voters chose representational parties with their second vote (instead of the straight-ticket voting hoped for), the large parties found their majorities in the Knesset reduced significantly- “Neither side enjoyed a ‘coattail’ effect” (Ottolenghi 2001, 117) and “the prime minister-elect was weakened politically as the electoral base of his party declined, whereas the electoral strength of the small and sectarian parties increased.” (Nachmias and Navot 2002, 143).
Similarly, the change in the electoral process forced new aspects upon the parties and their candidates during the elections. As had been hoped for, there was a general shift towards a moderation of candidates for the premiership. This negatively impacted the candidates and their parties though. For the two large parties who were fielding candidates for the election
there was only one comprehensive campaign, not two and the race for prime minister prevailed…Both parties thought, correctly, that whoever won the contest for prime minister would be able to form a coalition in the Knesset…Thus, in order to win the more important race, the emphasis placed on the less important contest was not just diminished, it was almost nonexistent. Both Labor and Likud were willing to lose seats in the Knesset in order to win the prime ministership (sic). (Hazan 1999, 166-167).
The choice to focus solely on the prime minister race led the candidates to slowly separate themselves from their parties to expand their support base. They needed to adopt more broad and open language and rhetoric that was not based in party aims or policy and led the candidate a distance away from the party organization. The candidate was forced
to run a campaign unencumbered by his party’s ideological baggage, and the party was forced to back this campaign at the cost of both its representativeness (as presence) and its representation (as ideas) in the legislature. The result is a chief executive who is elected by a constituency quite different from that of his own party. However, after the election, the prime minister is forced to rely on his party as the core of the legislative coalition with which he must operate. (Hazan and Rahat 2000, 1329).
In addition to all this, the prime minister is also expected to make major payoffs to the increased number of parties and supporters necessary to form a coalition. “The person charged with forming the coalition had to bring together a greater number of diverse and competing interests while lacking the political resources that were available prior to the reform.” (Nachmias and Navot 2002, 143). This political weakening of the prime minister’s party ticket more than offset any powers, legitimacy or mandate that the reform hoped to grant him
The split-ticket phenomenon led to other problems for the reformers. Their original intents of stabilizing governments and decreasing government corruption by making the PM stronger, failed utterly: “the electoral reform strongly influenced the coalition-building process and the size of governments…multi-partner coalitions were formed, uncertainty over the stability of governments increased, office-related payoffs expanded and their distribution was characterized by increased disproportion.” (Nachmias and Navot 2002, 144).
In turn, the Knesset fragmentation following the reform failed as well with respect to the stated goal of preventing out-of-hand negotiations for coalition building such as happened in 1990. The number of days required in order to form a coalition after the election saw an overall increase from the 1992 election to the 2001 election. This means that it was harder and took more time to put together a workable government- “in short, the presence of a ‘clear winner’ PM whose prospective cabinet was ‘the only game in town’ did little or nothing to streamline coalition negotiations. Indeed, coalitions grew even bigger and more awkward.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 118).
All of the overall hopes of the reformers with regard to the prime minister and the executive branch proved to be false under the new system. In rather succinct language:
Rather than enhancing the capability of the prime minister to lead the cabinet and govern, the reform granted him formal authority that could not be translated into action. Instead of instituting a stable system of parliamentary checks and balances and accountable intra-party decision-making procedures, the direct elections for the prime minister created a system with no core political party in the Knesset, thus increasing the likelihood of government instability. The electoral reform diminished the power of the prime minister’s party and increased party fragmentation in the Knesset…Overall, the electoral reform seriously impaired the governance capabilities of both the executive and the legislature. (Nachmias and Navot 2002, 136).
Ensuring Public Involvement in Government Change?
This main intent of the reformers was the only of the three to actually be relatively achieved. By tying the elections of the Knesset and the PM together, and giving both the power to dissolve the other, any change that occurred in government also involved public input by virtue of the elections that would follow. However, this brought with it some unforeseen consequences.
Arranging matters such that any coalition crisis triggers elections can be a recipe for drift and paralysis as disparate coalition partners, united mainly by an urge to stay in power, settle on “not rocking the boat” as the best survival strategy. Thus direct election channeled power to the people and away from horse-trading elites, but at the cost of energy in the executive. (Ottolenghi 2001, 115, emphasis added).
Inadvertently, the reformers had created a situation that theoretically created the means for greater democratic sanction in government workings, but which contradicted their other stated goals of reducing governmental lag, instability and empowering the prime minister.
Decreasing Small Parties?
The area in which the reform for direct elections failed most completely in comparison to the hopes and intents of the reformers was the decreasing of size, influence and number of small political parties. Despite their intentions to remove the smaller parties from the position of coalition “king-maker” and make them subservient to the larger parties, “the new system…significantly increased the bargaining power of the small, medium-sized, and religious parties.” (Brichta 1998, 190).
The largest contributor to this fact was the split-ticket phenomenon. Previous to the reform, Israeli voters were allowed simply one vote for the party of their choice. The party that would receive the most votes proportionately would generally be asked to form the governing coalition. Knowing this forced the voters many times to deliberately vote strategically for the main party in their preferred Knesset bloc instead of voting for a smaller party that might fit their political preferences better. This was done to increase the chances of the bloc that they preferred forming the coalition and including the party that they preferred most in the coalition. The changes that the reform brought dramatically changed this rational.
The incentive to vote for the largest party in the Knesset bloc disappeared. Voters could now vote for both the candidate they preferred for prime minister and the party with whose platform they most closely identified without worrying that their votes might facilitate the formation of a government by the competing bloc. The inevitable outcome was a sharp increase in the electoral strength of small and medium-sized parties at the expense of Labor and Likud. (Nachmias and Navot 2002, 142).
This ticket splitting first appeared in the 1996 election, but was exhibited in even greater numbers in the 1999 election as the public became more aware of the new changes. (Arieli-Horowitz 2002). “This sophisticated use of the ballot box by the Israeli voter left in its wake a party system in shambles, and a Knesset fractionalized and weakened compared to the prime minister and the executive branch.” (Arian 2005, 220).
From all of this we see that the size and number of center parties and small parties grew significantly. Empirically, it has been seen that “the number of so-called center parties, which are ready to join any winner of the PM race, rose from three (with a total of 16 seats) to six (with 38 seats in all).” Similarly, religious parties, which had 16 seats in 1992, rose to obtain 23 in the elections of 1996 and then 27 in ’99. (Ottolenghi 2001, 118).
The negotiation powers of the small parties also were strengthened. Kenig, Rahat and Hazan summarize the enlarged abilities of the smaller parties with regard to getting their way in negotiations:
After the direct elections were introduced, the smaller parties enjoyed greater blackmail potential. They could adopt a range of tactics, from threatening to run their own candidates for the prime minster—leading to a split in the votes of the camp as a whole—to calling on their voters to support one of the two candidates for the position of prime minister, or refraining from doing so. Accordingly, the major parties had a clear incentive not to arouse the wrath of their potential coalition partners. Small parties benefited twice from this situation: on the one hand they could concentrate on urging voters to choose them in the party vote, without needing to adopt any stance in the majoritarian contest, while on the other hand they were protected from attacks by the major parties. (Kenig, Rahat and Hazan 2005, 46).
It became clear quickly that the reformers had overstated the ability of the reform to curb the power of the small parties. Despite the reform, and even more so because of it “partisan dynamics and the stern arithmetic of coalition maintenance often forced [the PM] to dance to the smaller parties’ tunes.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 118).
Unintended Consequences:
From the split-voting phenomenon, we can also see an unanticipated backlash against the hoped-for moderating and central pulling effect that the reform caused with relation to the election of the prime minister. “Direct election did in fact foster a centripetal trend, but only in voting for prime minister.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 116, emphasis in original). Having seen how “the two way contest obliged both the Labor Party and the Likud…to blur their positions and move toward the political center in an effort to convince as many floating voters as possible to vote for them,” here we see the voters moving the opposite way because as “this blurring of position was essential in the elections for the prime minister, it served only to encourage voters to give their second vote to those parties which presented a distinct identity.” (Kenig, Rahat and Hazan 2005, 42). Just as centripetal forces had moved the two largest parties together to capture more votes for PM, centrifugal forces moved the voters outward with their second vote for the Knesset. Thus, we can see the failure of the attempt to attenuate the bipolarity of the system and reduce the power of the small parties. “The result of the electoral reforms is therefore not the strengthening of the incipient bipolarization of Israeli politics but rather its breakdown and Balkanization.” (Hazan and Rahat 2000, 1327).
This breakdown and fragmentation within the Knesset resulted in a large-scale decrease in overall governability.
The electoral reform in Israel produced a party system characterized by the prevalence of centripetal drives at one level of competition—and governance—and centrifugal drives at another level. This simultaneous occurrence produced concurrent moderating and polarizing consequences, which is one of the main reasons for the reduction in government stability. (Hazan and Rahat 2000, 1324).
These forces caused the job of the prime minister to become much harder. The fragmentation of both the Knesset and the subsequent coalition that the PM was forced to make because of such low representation from his party caused the PM to take a permanent role in smoothing ruffled feathers and agreement troubles with all the disparate groups within the government. “The sheer cost—in time, trouble, and state funds—of holding disparate coalition governments together sapped the executive’s ability to tackle pressing political issues.” Under such conditions, “a stable coalition is essentially beyond the reach of even the cleverest and most energetic prime minister.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 118-119).
Conclusion: Repealing the Changes
After less than a decade in operation, the direct election reform was repealed by the Knesset. The stated hopes of the reformers to strengthen the executive branch, introduce greater democratic process and involvement in the system and reduce the power, influence and size of the small parties in the Knesset were dashed as the reform provided for only one of the goals, the introduction of greater public involvement into government change, and that rather weakly and with accompanying unintended problems.
Repealing the ineffective reforms wasn’t enough though, because all could agree that the way the system had worked previous to their passage was not acceptable. Therefore, the parliament enacted some additional changes upon changing the system back: they introduced a constructive vote of no-confidence, and required a majority vote for it within the body of the legislature. They also retained the PM’s power to dismiss the Knesset to retain a check on the power of the small parties.
The direct election of the Prime Minister had been a genuine attempt to change the overall system of Israeli politics. Pulling together skillfully the convergence of numerous historical event chains, the reformers were able to combine the power of the public mob to override political renitence for change (even though the real reform necessary, PR reform, was still untouchable). This wave of public opinion was encouraged and ridden to the end that politician concerns for the system were both allayed and addressed by the adoption of a plan produced by the academic elite. Bringing together these disparate and often contradictory sections of society, “the reform had hoped to achieve the same results that a less proportional electoral system would have produced,” but which had proved too radical of a change to drive through the already fractionalized Knesset. (Ottolenghi 2001, 119). However, the brief experiment with reform has proved that “direct election had amplified political fragmentation and created a system that condemned the PM to inaction and ineffectiveness, and the country to chronic political instability and frequent elections.” (Ottolenghi 2001, 120). Despite their best intentions, the reformers zealous pursuit of reform for the sake of reform, led them to blindly stumble into a maze of worsening political considerations.
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