The question of whether and to what extent interest groups are more successful than other parties in litigation is the subject of many debates among social scientists. Previous works in the field concentrated on checking outcomes of cases that were disposed of by courts in officially published final decisions. We sought to analyze not only final court decisions but also the outcomes of out-of-court settlements. Drawing from Marc Galanter's hypothesis that groups, especially those who are``repeat players,'' are likely to use out-of-court settlements more often and more efficiently than other litigants (Galanter 1974), we measured actual case outcomes of petitions brought before the Israeli High Court of Justice. We found that groups in general, and``repeat player'' groups in particular, achieved a success rate significantly higher than other litigants. We also found that the relative advantage of groups in litigation is the result of their ability to reach out-of-court settlements with government agencies.

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The relative decline in party membership in West‐European countries over the last three decades is an accepted fact in the comparative literature on party organization. However, the bare facts do not explain the reasons for such decline and may leave the feeling that the process is irreversible. A number of scholars relate party membership decline to the introduction of public finance of political parties. They suggest that public financing laws and related arrangements have a negative effect on efforts to mobilize party membership, leading to a decline in political participation. In this article, drawing mainly on the Israeli experience, I argue that public funding does not necessarily lead to membership decline, but that changes in the internal competition rules for electing party candidates to national or local posts may affect party membership more than any other variable. Thus, the decline in membership that has been considered to be irreversible, is in fact highly reversible.

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