Political Reform Program

This flagship program seeks to address the key challenges facing Israel's parliamentary system, including political instability, over-centralization, fragmentation of the party system, rising populism, a decline in the prestige and effectiveness of the Knesset and deteriorating public trust in political institutions.

The program develops and promotes proposals for reform, with an emphasis on measures to stabilize the political system, boost the Prime Minister's capacity to govern, strengthen parliamentary oversight of the executive branch, and democratize intra-party processes. Over the years, the program has contributed to the repeal of direct elections for the Prime Minister, raising the electoral threshold for the Knesset and the establishment of the Legislative Information Center of the Knesset.

 

In the wake of five elections in less than four years, the program is focused on promoting a series of critical reforms designed to restore stability to Israel’s political system.

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    Dr. Assaf Shapira

    Head; Research Fellow

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    [email protected]

    Assaf Shapira received a PhD in Political Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for International Relations at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and at the Centre d’études européennes (Center for European Studies) at the Sciences po (Paris).

    His research largely focuses on political representation, political parties, the role of money in politics, and reforms in Israel's public service.

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    Prof. Gideon Rahat

    Senior Fellow

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    Professor Rahat is a faculty member of the Political Sciences Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an International Fellow at the Center for the Study of Democracy at the University of California, Irvine.

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    Dr. Dana Blander

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    Research Fellow and Research Consultant

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    Dr. Dana Blander is a Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute and an expert clinical psychologist. Her doctoral thesis - "ambivalence as a challenge to the political order" - which combines political philosophy with psychoanalytic insights won the Alex Berger Award of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 2008. She served as a guest lecturer at Tufts University in Boston in the years 2010-2011.

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    Dr. Chen Friedberg

    Research Fellow

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    Dr. Chen Friedberg has co-written many papers published by the Israel Democracy Institute.

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    Prof. Ofer Kenig

    Research Fellow

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    Prof. Ofer Kenig is a senior lecturer in Ashkelon Academic College and a research fellow in Israel Democracy Institute. His areas of research include comparative politics, political parties, leadership and candidate selection and Israeli politics. He co-authored the books Reforming Israel's Political System (2013), The Promise and Challenge of Party Primary Elections (2016) and From Party Politics to Personalized Politics (2018).

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    Avital Friedman

    Researcher

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    Asaf Heiman

    Research Assistant

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    Asaf holds a bachelor's and master’s degree in political science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His thesis presented on a comparative study of political parties in local government in Israel. At IDI, Asaf researches local politics in Israel and explores ways to promote local democracy in Israel. As part of this, Asaf focuses on studying the activities of political parties in Israel's local government and the local electoral system.

This week's announcement of the resignation of the ultra-Orthodox parties from the coalition marks a fairly common case of parties resigning due to matters of religion and state. The following historical analysis looks at parties that have withdrawn from their governing coalitions over the years and the ideological disagreements that led them to do so.