Intersectional Representation of Arab Legislators in the Israeli Parliament

• In Event: Religious Minorities

Abstract

The Arab minority in Israel and its representatives in the Israeli parliament grapple with intersectional identities, such as religion, nationality and gender. The literature regarding intersectional identities argues that individuals who belong to two or more disadvantaged groups are more invisible in terms of political representation than those who belong to only one disadvantaged group. Thus, they are "doubly disadvantaged” (Strolovitch 2006; Celis and Erzeel 2013, 2017; Hancock 2016). Such studies, however, have analyzed only part of the process of political representation–becoming a candidate and getting elected (Hughes 2011, 2016; Celis and Erzeel 2013; Fisher et al. 2015). Examinations of descriptive and substantive representation have received less research attention.
In the Israeli context, both Arab and Jewish citizens of Israel see Arab legislators as representing mainly Palestinians who are not citizens of Israel. Akirav (2014) found that Arab legislators act as true representatives by speaking up on behalf of their voters rather than promoting the cause of the Palestinians.
The current study analyzes the content of Arab legislators' parliamentary activities on the floor and the frequency of their parliamentary activities. By parliamentary activities I include private member bills, parliamentary questions, motions for the agenda, one-minute speeches and general speeches. By analyzing the use of these parliamentary tools, we can create the first comprehensive picture of minority representation and address the questions of whether, when or why intersectional identities create invisible representation.
I use a mixed research method. First, I analyze the themes in Arab legislators’ narratives, a method that to date has not been used in Israel. Second, I conduct a statistical analysis of the frequency with which Arab legislators use the parliamentary tools based on independent variables such as their gender, seniority, party size, and membership in the government or the opposition.









References
Akirav, O. (2014). Catch-22: Arab members of the Israeli parliament. Representation, 50(4), 485-508.
Celis, K., and Erzeel, S. (2013). Gender and ethnicity: Intersectionality and the politics of group representation in the Low Countries. Representation, 49(4):487-499.
Celis, K., and Erzeel, S. (2017). The complementarity advantage: Parties, representativeness and newcomers’ access to power. Parliamentary Affairs, 70(1):43-61.
Fisher, S. D., Heath, A. F., Sanders, D., and Sobolewska, M. (2015). Candidate ethnicity and vote choice in Britain. British Journal of Political Science, 45(4):883-905.
Hancock, A.M. (2016). Intersectionality: An intellectual history. Oxford University Press.
Hughes, M. (2011). Intersectionality, Quotas, and Minority Women’s Political Representation Worldwide, American Political Science Review, 105:604–620
Hughes, M.M. (2016). Electoral systems and the legislative representation of Muslim ethnic minority women in the West, 2000–2010. Parliamentary Affairs, 69(3):548-568.
Strolovitch, D.Z. (2006). Do Interest Groups Represent the Disadvantaged? Advocacy at the Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender, Journal of Politics, 68: 894–910.

Author

• Osnat Akirav, Western Galilee College