Israel's Political Instability: Fragmentation, Unity and Leadership

• In Event: Executive and Ministerial Leadership

Abstract

Israel's political system is almost a synonym for electoral fragmentation and multilevel political instability. Yet, one position within Israel is quite stable: the Prime Minister's position. Based on research on leadership patterns in parliamentary systems, I show that Israeli Prime Ministers use electoral fragmentation to maneuver between institutional settings: cabinets, governments, parliaments, and their parties. The variance between levels of institutional instability accords with four leadership patterns of Prime Ministers: as part of the party’s leadership collective, party-based, Prime Ministerialized or Presidentialized. These leadership patterns depend on the party system’s structure, Prime-Ministers' popularity and the interaction with the party they lead. These factors affect Prime-Ministers' ability to use Israel's electoral fragmentation to survive in office. Consequently, they reflect different modes of operation for Prime-Ministers and yield different patterns of political instability in Israel.

Author

• Maoz Rosenthal, Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya