The Politics of Electoral Reform Abolition: The Informed Process of Israel's Return to its Previous Electoral System
| Author | Gideon Rahat |
| Published date | 01 March 2006 |
| Date | 01 March 2006 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2006.00565.x |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The Politics of Electoral Reform Abolition:
The Informed Process of Israel’s Return to
Its Previous Electoral System
Gideon Rahat
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
This article examines the process that led to the repeal of Israeli electoral reform (1992–2001) and com-
pares it with that of reform adoption (1987–92). The most significant difference between the two
processes is in the kinds of information that were available in them.In the politics of reform adoption,
information was susceptible to manipulation and its supply was a crucial part of the struggle itself. In
the politics of reform abolition, the real consequences of reform were constantly unfolding.This sub-
stantial difference resulted in other differences – not in type but in extent.First, while both were ongoing
processes in which coalitions of supporters and opponents had to be built and then rebuilt several times,
the cohesion of the camps throughout the struggle for reform abolition was higher than in the strug-
gle for reform adoption. Second, while office-seeking successfully served as a basis for understanding
the behavior of most parliamentary actors, the actual perceptions of its exact contextual meaning was
dependent upon different available information.The two processes also had two common characteris-
tics: power was diffused in both arenas of the politics of reform and in both instances the selection of
the right timing proved to be necessary for successfully promoting the initiatives against veto players
who were interested in preserving the status quo.
In the 1990s, four established democracies – New Zealand, Italy,Japan and Israel
– after using the same electoral system for decades, adopted substantial electoral
reforms (Norris, 1995; Shugart and Wattenberg, 2001). Among these democra-
cies, only Israel, in less than a decade, abolished the reform and returned to use
its previous system. If reform is itself a rare occurrence, and one that presents a
challenging puzzle for scholars, then this sequence of reform and its repeal pre-
sents an even larger conundrum: if a majority of the elected representatives
decided that reform was needed for improving the functioning of the system or
to better serve their personal or partisan interests, how is it that a majority in
the same forum, elected by the new – desired – system, decided to abolish it?
The simple and correct answer is that this was a process of trial and error (and
its correction): the reform was adopted on the basis of flawed perceptions. It was
abolished when its real consequences became apparent, that is, when the poli-
tics of reform became an informed process.
The Knesset (Israeli parliament) is elected by a Proportional Representation (PR)
closed-list electoral system, in which the whole nation serves as a single con-
stituency. This system has remained almost intact since Israel attained indepen-
dence (1948). In essence, the Basic Law: The Government (1992), which was
adopted by the Twelfth Knesset (1988–92), reformed the government system. It
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2006 VOL 54, 43–64
© 2006 The Author
Journal compilation © 2006 Political Studies Association
44 RAHAT
created a unique combination of presidential and parliamentarian elements: the
head of the executive branch, the Pr ime Minister (PM), was to be directly
elected, yet needed the approval – and confidence – of the legislature for the
government he/she established in order to hold on to his/her post (Hazan,1996).
In the elections under the new system, each voter had two votes.1One was used
to select a candidate list for the Knesset; this vote determined seat allocation in
the Knesset in exactly the same manner as before the adoption of reform. The
second vote was used to select,nominally, one of the contenders for PM accord-
ing to a two-round majoritarian system. The holding of both elections at the
same time and the addition of the direct election of the PM ‘above’ the Knesset
elections marked the establishment of a new two-ballot electoral system that
replaced the former one-ballot system. This created de facto electoral reform in
terms of supplying new incentives, considerations and strategies for voters,politi-
cal parties and individual politicians (Diskin, 1999; Har ris and Doron, 1999;
Hazan and Rahat, 2000).Two distinct electoral systems,that can be seen as exact
opposites, were operational simultaneously: the old, extremely proportional and
partisan electoral system for the Knesset and a new, personal and majoritarian
system for electing the PM (Shugart, 2001). On March 7, 2001, the Knesset
passed in second and third readings the abolition of the separate elections for the
PM. Israel returned to its old government and electoral system.2
This article explains, first, the utility of the study of reform abolition for the re-
examination of the theory of electoral reform. Second, it analyses the politics of
reform abolition, a process that stretched over three Knesset terms (1992–2001)
and demonstrates how the revelation of the real consequences of reform led to
its repeal. Finally, the article compares five characteristics of the processes of
reform abolition and adoption: (1) the kinds of information available in the two
processes; (2) the cohesion of the camps of reform opponents and proponents
throughout the processes; (3) power dispersion in the arena of the politics of
reform; (4) the timing of the votes on reform abolition and adoption; and (5)
the varying motivations for support and rejection of reform.
A Theoretical Perspective on the Adoption and Repeal
of Electoral Reform
Scholars have offered general explanations for the electoral reform puzzle based
on rational choice analysis (Benoit, 2004;Dunleavy and Margetts, 1995),the insti-
tutional approach (Shugart and Wattenberg, 2001) and historical comparisons
(Norris, 1995; Sakamoto, 1999).The theoretical controversy among political sci-
entists about the utility of the rational choice approach for studying real world
phenomena (Friedman, 1995;Green and Shapiro, 1994) also occurs in the debate
over the politics of reform, particularly in regard to the Israeli case of reform
adoption (Bueno de Mesquita 2000; Rahat, 2004).
Rahat (2004) claims that the potential simplicity of the rational choice paradigm
cannot be utilized for studying the reforms of the 1990s because these occurred
© 2006 The Author
Journal compilation © 2006 Political Studies Association
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