Agenda control in an unstable multiparty parliamentary democracy: evidence from the Israeli public sector

Abstract

As elected politicians' knowledge, information and expertise about the policy process decrease, so will their ability to control it and to independently shape its agenda. When elected politicians spend less time in their positions due to cabinet instability, they will have less knowledge about policy issues in comparison to career bureaucrats. Multiparty parliamentary systems are characterized by cabinet instability, hence increasing the likelihood of this phenomenon. Indeed it has been shown that in these systems the bureaucracy is the main player in the policy process. This paper illustrates this phenomenon in the Israeli context, a clear example of a multiparty democracy with an unstable cabinet and a dominant bureaucracy.

Study of Local Government Problems in Implementation of Development Budget Policy Planning in Economic Sector of Indonesia

“…Comparative study of the implementation of economic development budget (Armstrong, and Taylor (2000) in collecting data and information on the state of the region and the potential of the economic sectors it possesses as input determination in clarifying the regional economic picture objectively, thus providing the necessary input in determination of local government policy (Rosenthal, 2012) for the creation of innovative economic development systems (Conyers and Hills, 1990).…”

Policy Instability in a Comparative Perspective: The Context of Heresthetic

“…Israel is a multiparty parliamentary democracy in which the whole country serves as one electoral district. Prime ministers need to have enough parties supporting them to raise at least a minimum winning coalition (Rosenthal, 2012). In December 2003 the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared that he had made a decision to initiate a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.The surprise in that decision was that in January 2003, less than a year before Sharon made that declaration, he led his Likud (Unity) party to power campaigning on the rejection of the proposal to evacuate unilaterally the Gaza Strip.…”

“…Israel is a multiparty parliamentary democracy in which the whole country serves as one electoral district. Prime ministers need to have enough parties supporting them to raise at least a minimum winning coalition (Rosenthal, 2012). In December 2003 the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon declared that he had made a decision to initiate a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.…”

Inverted First- and Second-Order Elections: The Israeli Case

“…It is characterized by ample cross-cutting and overlapping cleavages (Smooha 2002). Politically, Israel is a multi-party parliamentary system based on a high district magnitude, a low electoral threshold, and an ongoing coalitional instability (Rosenthal 2011).…”

“…This crisis was manifested by increasing cabinet instability, policy fragmentation (Nachmias andArbel-Ganz 2005, 2006), and bureaucratic agenda control (Meydani 2008;Rosenthal 2011), alongside a decreasing level of effective policy implementation (Rosenthal and Wolfson 2010). Furthermore, public trust in the way that the government functions is significantly lower than it is in most European democracies (Lewin-Epstein and Adler 2011).…”