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Collective Identity and Electoral Competition in Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Michal Shamir  and
Asher Arian
Michal Shamir
Affiliation:
Tel Aviv University
Asher Arian
Affiliation:
City University of New York and, University of Haifa
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Abstract

Comparative electoral research suggests that issue voting has increased and that the ability of social cleavages to account for voting patterns in most advanced industrial democracies has declined. In Israel, only the first of these generalizations holds. The capacity of social cleavages to structure the vote has been maintained along with our overall ability to explain the vote. Based on longitudinal analysis of electoral cleavages between 1969 and 1996 and on an analysis of the 1996 election, we argue that this pattern is driven by issues involving identity dilemmas that have become increasingly important in structuring the vote. Such dilemmas amalgamate policy issues and social allegiances, while reinforcing existing cleavage structures. Focusing on the 1996 election we probe the meanings of internal and external collective identity concerns in Israeli politics, their considerable overlap, and their translation into political choices.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 93 , Issue 2 , June 1999 , pp. 265 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1999

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