Constituency interests without constituencies:

Political Geography 18 (1999) 791–811 www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo

Constituency interests without constituencies: the geographical impact of candidate selection on party organization and legislative behavior in the 14th Israeli Knesset, 1996–99 Reuven Y. Hazan The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Political Science, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel

Abstract The Israeli political system has recently undergone dramatic and significant structural changes, including the introduction of a new method of candidate selection known as primaries. This article focuses on this new method of candidate selection, which drastically reshaped the connection between the parties and their members, their voters and their representatives, and as a result completely undermined the organizational infrastructure of the parties that adopted primaries. This article describes the reforms that were enacted, assesses their ramifications and focuses on the geographical significance of the innovative aspect of constituency representation by individual parliamentarians, which the primaries injected into the unitary political parties, electoral system and political infrastructure in Israel during the 14th Knesset, 1996–99. In doing so, this article points to a lacuna in the political science literature concerning the relevance and consequences of candidate selection—i.e. intra-party elections—on political geography. The article argues that intra-party electoral reform is not only significant, but, from a political geography perspective, can prove to be as meaningful and consequential as systemic electoral reform.  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Elections; Electoral reform; Candidate selection; Constituencies; Political parties; Israel

The nominating process … has become the crucial process of the party. The nature of the nominating process determines the nature of the party; he who makes the nominations is the owner of the party. This is therefore one of the best points at which to observe the distribution of power within the party Schattschneider (1942: 100). 0962-6298/99/$ - see front matter  1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 9 6 2 - 6 2 9 8 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 0 2 8 - 1

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It appears illogical to combine primaries, intended to make legislators independent of party, with a parliamentary system that requires cohesive legislative parties in order to provide stable government Epstein (1964: 55). Introduction: inter-party and intra-party electoral reform in Israel In the early 1990s, the Israeli political system underwent dramatic and significant structural changes, affecting both the legislative and the executive branches of government. A new method of candidate selection was introduced, known as primaries, with consequences that have had a notable impact on the legislature. Direct election of the prime minister was adopted, and has remolded the nature of the executive. Israel suddenly entered into an era of accelerated reform, with wide ranging implications concerning the dynamics of Israeli politics in general, and the political parties in particular. This article focuses on the reform that involves the new method of candidate selection for the legislature in Israel, the Knesset. Party primaries were adopted by the largest parties in the outgoing 13th Knesset (1992–96), thus becoming the dominant method of nominating candidates prior to the election of the 14th Knesset (1996–99). This new method of candidate selection drastically reshaped the connection between the parties and their members, their voters and their representatives, and as a result completely undermined the organizational infrastructure of the parties that adopted primaries. The primaries also transformed the relationship between the executive and legislative branches of government, creating a more fluid and unstable constellation. This article sets out to accomplish the following: first, to describe the reforms that were enacted regarding both the election of the prime minister and the selection of individual party candidates for the parliament; second, to assess the ramifications of these reforms for the individual parliamentarian, on the one hand, and for the functioning and stability of the political parties, on the other hand; third, to focus on and elaborate the geographical significance of the innovative aspect of constituency representation by individual parliamentarians, which the primaries injected into the unitary political parties, electoral system and political infrastructure in Israel during the 14th Knesset; and fourth, to elaborate the theoretical ramifications of the Israeli case concerning the relevance of candidate selection for political geography.

Direct election of the prime minister The extremely fragmented, fractionalized and polarized nature of the Israeli party system in the 1980s led to difficulties not only in the formation of governments, but in their survival, as well (Diamond and Sprinzak, 1993). Weak governments, and frequent crises, came to be perceived as extremely disruptive to the stability of Israel’s democracy by both the electorate and the politicians. The result was a monumental reform of the Basic Law: The Government, originally enacted in 1968 and

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amended in 1992, which changed the electoral, political and constitutional systems in Israel (Hazan, 1996). The new Basic Law: The Government makes Israel the first country to directly and popularly elect its prime minister, concurrent with the Knesset elections. This new electoral system was first implemented in the election of the 14th Knesset, in May of 1996. The prime minister was elected, according to the new law, using the two-ballot system—similar to French and Russian presidential elections—requiring an absolute majority.1 The Knesset, on the other hand, was elected on the same day as the first round of the elections for the prime minister, and continues to be chosen by a fixed list system of proportional representation, with the entire state serving as one constituency and the threshold set at only 1.5%. At any time during the prime minister’s tenure, he can be ousted by the Knesset through a vote of no-confidence, which requires only a bare majority of 61 out of the 120 Members of Knesset (MKs). However, such a removal of the prime minister brings about the dissolution of the Knesset as well, heralding new elections for both. By the same token, the prime minister has the power to dissolve the Knesset, ending his tenure, as well, and forcing elections for both. In other words, as of mid-1996 Israel ceased to be a parliamentary democracy and became an institutionally unique and hybrid type of regime, one which grants both the separately elected executive and legislative branches a double-edged sword—the power to oust the other without much difficulty while simultaneously incurring its own downfall. The direct election of the prime minister served to undermine party discipline, because it distanced the candidates from the party organization. The need to win an absolute majority—a goal never achieved by any party in Israel—forced both prime ministerial candidates to run a campaign unencumbered by their respective party’s ideological baggage; and the party was forced to back this campaign at the cost of its own representation in the legislature. Moreover, both of the main parties had to hold back from competing with the smaller parties, each fearing that if it challenged them in the Knesset race, the smaller parties would not support their candidate for prime minister. In other words, both parties had to sacrifice seats in the Knesset election in order to win the prime ministerial race. The results were a chief executive who ran ‘above parties’, elected by a constituency quite different from that of his own party, and the two major parties losing seats in the legislature. The predominance of the race for prime minister, unhindered by a particular party, and the decline in support for the two main parties as a result of ballot-splitting, damaged the party organizations in Israel and hampered the leadership’s ability to discipline their parliamentary representatives. However, the most detrimental impact on party cohesion resulted not from the direct election of the prime minister, but from the party primaries.

1 If no candidate obtains the majority needed to win in the first round, then two weeks later a second round is held in which only the two candidates with the highest vote in the previous round participate.

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(S)Election of party candidates Among the characteristics that described Israeli politics until the mid-1990s, two of the most important were parliamentarism and political parties. As the former was swept away by the implementation of direct popular election for the prime minister, the latter came under attack due to the adoption of party primaries for the selection of Knesset candidates. The first party in Israel to introduce primaries as its method for selecting candidates was the Democratic Movement for Change (DMC) in 1977, a party whose raison d’etre was electoral and constitutional reform (Urieli and Barzilay, 1982). Despite its achievement of winning 13% of the seats on its first try, it split, collapsed and ceased to exist by the following election—and along with it, the primaries. One of its causes survived, however, and the major parties in the Israeli party system began to move slowly away from the selection of their candidates for the Knesset by only a small group of party leaders (Goldberg and Hoffman, 1983; Doron and Goldberg, 1990). The first major party in Israel to introduce primaries as its method of selecting candidates for the Knesset was Labor, which elected both its candidate for prime minister and its Knesset candidates through primaries in 1992. The success of the Labor party in the ensuing Knesset election was perceived as being partially due to its new method of candidate selection, thus creating a momentum for internal party change that quickly swept throughout the party system (Barr, 1996). Immediately after the 1992 election, Israel’s second major party, Likud, also decided to elect its chairperson and Knesset candidates through primaries. In the municipal elections held in 1993, several parties adopted primaries for electing their candidates. Prior to the election of the 14th Knesset in 1996, the two biggest parties—Labor and Likud, who together held almost two-thirds of the Knesset seats—enacted a parallel form of primaries as the method by which their candidates were selected. The third and fourth largest parties, Meretz and Tsomet, also adopted primaries— yet in a form that was quite different from that of the two main parties (Hazan, 1997a). In total, the overwhelming majority (80%) of the outgoing MKs had to compete in party primaries prior to the 1996 election of the 14th Knesset. Only dues-paying party members were allowed to vote in their party primaries, as opposed to open primaries where any voter can participate in the selection of nominees of any party. The primaries for choosing the Labor and Likud candidates for the Knesset were held on consecutive days and were divided into two levels: national and regional. A total of 21 candidates were chosen from the Labor national list, and 25 from the Likud national list. On the regional level, Labor selected 23 candidates from 12 constituencies, while Likud chose 20 candidates from 10 constituencies. A candidate could run either on the national list or in a constituency—where he or she had to be a resident. On the national list, each Labor party member was asked to vote for a minimum of 11 candidates and a maximum of 15, and each Likud member was required to vote for a minimum of 19 and a maximum of 20 candidates. In the constituencies,

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the Labor party members were asked to vote for two candidates, while the Likud members voted for just one. The Labor party constituencies were made up of the following: 5 geographical constituencies (North, Central, South, Dan, and Sharon regions), 3 municipal constituencies (Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and Haifa) and 4 sectarian constituencies (kibbutzim [collective settlements], moshavim [cooperative settlements], minorities [i.e. Arabs] and Druze, the last electing only one candidate). The Likud’s constituencies were similar in make-up: 6 geographical constituencies (Negev, Galilee, Dan, Coastal and Lowlands regions, and the territories [Judea, Samaria and Gaza]), 3 municipal constituencies (Jerusalem, Tel-Aviv and Haifa) and 1 sectarian constituency (regional councils). In short, out of the total of 22 constituencies, 17 were geographical in nature and 5 were sectarian.2 The Labor and Likud lists for the 14th Knesset were produced according to a prearranged order, in which the top vote gainers from the national list were placed first—10 in Labor, 16 in Likud—and only then candidates from the constituencies were inserted between candidates from the national list. Labor’s constituency candidates were ranked higher on the Knesset list than those in the Likud party, resulting in more constituency nominees taking up ‘safe’ Labor seats (see Appendix A). However, in both parties, the top positions came from the national list, thereby relegating the constituencies to a secondary level of importance.3

The ramifications of party primaries This section focuses on the method of primaries used by the two major parties, due to their dominant size and position in the Israeli party system. The type of primaries adopted by Labor and Likud is unique in three ways. First, there is practically no role for the party in the process. Apart from the fact that in order to vote or run one must be a party member, the party institutions are practically devoid of any influence on the outcome. In this way, the Israeli form of primaries is quite different from other parliamentary or European ones, but quite similar to the primaries in the United States.4 The second difference distinguishes Israel from the

2 Positions on the two party lists were also reserved for particular candidates, and were meant to ensure greater representativeness in the party lists. For example, in the Labor party 1 in every 10 spots was reserved for a woman. Other groups in Israeli society, such as Arabs and new immigrants, were also allocated reserved positions. Yet, reserved slots are not new in Israeli politics; such allocations were practiced even when the party lists were produced by a small group of party leaders. 3 In the Labor-led governments presented to the Knesset by Rabin in 1992, Peres in 1995 (after the Rabin assassination), and the Likud-led government of Netanyahu in 1996, none of the ministers were selected to the party list from the constituency primaries. 4 Primaries are quite rare in European or parliamentary democracies. Only in a few countries do parties allow their members to directly select their candidates for office. Most parties, instead, use an indirect method of candidate selection, which through formal or informal processes allows the parties to maintain a dominant role (Gallagher and Marsh, 1988).

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United States as well, in that those who vote in primary elections in Israel are allowed to cast multiple votes—up to 15 in Labor and 20 in Likud. The third difference clearly places Israel in a category of its own. Those who win primary elections in Israel are not required to subsequently run for election in a constituency. That is, after receiving a vote of support by the party members, they need not receive the direct support of the voters, since the Knesset is chosen by fixed party lists with the entire country serving as one constituency. A candidate who wins a high place on the party list in the primaries is then placed in office based on the proportional national results of the party. The balancing role of making a candidate directly responsible both to the party members (through primaries) and to the electorate (through constituency elections) is absent in Israel. That is, a candidate who can muster enough support from a particular group of party members in the primaries, and is thus placed high enough on the party list, could be elected without any need to be directly responsible to the interests of a wider constituency.5 A victory in the constituency primary is, therefore, tantamount to a victory in the general elections. In Labor and Likud, both the choice of candidates and their positions on the party lists were thus decided solely by the party members in the primaries. Neither party, therefore, was able to filter the prospective candidates, nor was it able to control their ranking on the list. In short, candidates elected to the 14th Knesset from either of the main parties owe their parliamentary positions predominantly to the party members who participated in the primaries and voted for them, and not to the party organization or its leadership.6 The result of the adoption of primaries is the introduction of a new operational code into the work of the Knesset—the primary casualty being the political parties— which can be perceived both at the party level and at the level of the individual MK. Party leaders, who until recently controlled the selection of their parties’ candidates, were circumvented by politicians who appealed directly to the electorate, and at times a very particular electorate. As party lists in Israel were assembled not by the party organs, but by the party members, the result was the expunging of what is, in essence, one of the most important functions of parties in parliamentary democracies. The ability of prospective politicians to circumvent the parties’ institutions thus changed the bases of legitimacy, representation and responsibility of the chosen Knesset members. The consequences have been a weakening of parties and party control, coupled with the hampering of the parties’ ability to aggregate positions and policies, to present a cohesive ideological image, to operate effectively in the

5 The ability to be selected to a ‘safe’ position on the party list from a constituency is easier than from the national list, i.e. it requires fewer votes, which minimizes even further the voter base to which the candidate must be loyal. Moreover, it is much easier for organized interests that are geographically concentrated to influence a constituency primary than the national list. 6 This does not mean that the party was devoid of all influence. It could ‘push’ a certain candidate, or create conditions that were favorable to particular candidates, yet this had little influence on the makeup of the lists. A party could also decide to merge with another party, thus combining their lists and altering the placement of candidates.

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parliamentary arena and to function as a stable base for the political process. Former Likud Minister Ze’ev Begin, who won one of the top positions in the party primary, argues that: The party organs … are essential for the creation of a political platform, social or economic, and for its promotion and implementation by the party’s MKs. Party discipline, which is so easily ridiculed, is a necessary condition for the proper functioning of a democratic regime. A random collection of MKs, who pander to their voters, each using more lowly tactics, is a dangerous obstacle (Begin, 1996: 208). On the level of the individual MK, those who are chosen directly owe their loyalty to their voters, and not only to their party. MKs are no longer assured of a future in politics by being loyal team players; instead they must stand out and be recognized—not by the party leaders but by the party members. Primaries, therefore, produce dual sources of legitimacy for MKs—party legitimacy and personal legitimacy. Former Labor Minister Uzi Baram, who won the top position in the 1996 party primary, aptly described the new situation: With the change of the intra-party selection method, the political ‘parents’ were also instantly replaced. Instead of the 1200 Party Center members, and a number of leaders managing the apparatus, the MK suddenly adopted 150 000 new ‘parents’. They chose him for the position of MK, and until his reselection four years later he is responsible only to them (Baram, 1996: 215). The ability of parties, and other parliamentary organs, to work in a cohesive and disciplined manner has, therefore, been hampered by the primaries. MKs are increasingly more autonomous, neither willing to bend to party dictates nor able to vote against popular private proposals. To the party and MK levels must be added the mass level. Empirical examples in the context of the 1996 primaries show how this method of candidate selection had a negative impact on the quality of party membership and helped advance the internal demise of the parties. For example, candidates running in the primaries of one party attempted to recruit as many party members (and hence potential voters) as possible, even from other parties, thereby pushing the pursuit of quantity over quality to an extreme. Moreover, some of those who joined a party in order to support a particular candidate in the primaries—and thereby influenced the party’s list for the Knesset—never intended to vote for that party in the subsequent Knesset elections. Partisan identification, beyond the momentary and the instrumental, seemed to matter little in the primaries. Indeed, both major parties had constituencies where the number of their members, or the number who voted in their primaries, was higher than the number of votes they received in the national elections only two months later (Rahat and Sher-Hadar, 1999). The rather apparent instrumentality of party membership is further exhibited in

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that the number of party members increased dramatically during the primary year, but then sharply dropped off afterwards, thereby showing that membership had become the way by which one could vote in the primaries, and no longer a permanent link between the voter and the party. This increase and immediate decrease in party membership is similar to the more general phenomenon of party mobilization in the run up to elections. However, in other countries the rapid growth in party membership prior to elections has little to no effect on the makeup of the party list, but is rather a mobilization of forces to support the election campaign. In Israel, the party members were those who were responsible for producing the major party lists prior to the election of the 14th Knesset, and not those who actively participated in the parties’ campaigns. The ramifications of combining party mobilization and party primaries is, therefore, both different and more significant than the more general phenomenon of party mobilization alone. Moreover, a survey showed that of those party members who participated in the primaries, fully one-third failed to acknowledge that they were party members.7 The meaning, not just the quality, of party membership seems to have lost much of its relevance in the era of primaries. The declining quality of party membership can also be seen in the phenomenon of double registration, averaging 10% in Labor and Likud.8 All of the above indicate how the introduction of primaries in general, and the particular method adopted by the parties in Israel, served only to damage the party organizations, destroy the power of the party leadership and degrade the status of party membership. The adoption of primaries also dramatically changed the relations between the executive and legislative branches (Hazan, 1997b). Primaries have made control of the legislature an extremely difficult task, due to their negative impact on the cohesiveness and discipline of the primary functional entities in any legislature—the political parties. As Nissim Zvilli, the former Secretary-General of the Labor party, phrased it: The real problem is the underlying tension between the MKs and the ministers, which explodes as we get closer to the primaries. The MKs know that if they back the policies of the government, they will disappear from the political map. This pushes MKs to be exceptional, and results in competition for headlines (Yedioth Aharonoth, 12.12.94). In the place of executive dominance over the parliament, as a result of a directlyelected prime minister, the primaries produce directly-elected MKs who prefer to develop a more balanced relationship. However, this new balance between the execu-

7

Survey conducted by Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, Israel Democracy Institute, May 1996. Parties were obliged to submit their membership lists to the Party Registrar, who subsequently crossreferenced them and discovered the high rate of double registration, despite the fact that this is forbidden by the Parties Law. The Party Registrar’s response was to ask all those who had double registration to choose which party they preferred, or to have their membership removed from both parties. 8

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tive and the legislature is a very fluid and unstable one, both from the perspective of the governing coalition and from that of the political parties. Thus, the correlation between the direct election of the prime minister and the primaries engenders a radical change in the relations between the parliamentarians and the parties. Commitment to the party platform and party discipline are being supplanted by decentralized, personal relations between a prime minister elected directly by the people and individual parliamentarians who owe their election to a minor constituency within the membership of their respective parties. While the previous system suppressed the personal elements, direct elections and primaries reinforce individualist and populist politics in both branches of government, at the expense of partisan and programmatic considerations. However, the most poignant aspect of the party primaries, in terms of partisan organization, is the inclusion of constituencies. The reason for this claim is that those MKs who were selected to their party lists from the national party primary can circumvent the party due to their personal legitimacy and support base, whereas those MKs who were selected from primary constituencies have a geographical source of legitimacy and support. This geographical aspect, unlike the personal one, has the potential of creating more conflicts of interest with the party. Moreover, constituencyselected MKs can also create alliances across parties based on geographical interests. This article now turns to the original and unique aspect of Israeli politics, in which geographical constituencies and their respective geographical interests were introduced, through intra-party elections, into an electoral and political system that lacks any geographical constituencies.

Constituency interests in a unitary system In Israel, as in the United States, primaries were instituted in part due to the desire to rid the parties of representatives who remained in office for long periods and to bring in new faces. In Israel, however, it was the inclusion of constituencies into the party primaries that was the vehicle for achieving this goal. It was thought, correctly, that for an aspiring politician to win a high position on the national primary list would be almost impossible, because this is where many of the top incumbents ran. However, if constituencies were created (alongside the national primary list) and their winning candidates were ranked in relatively safe positions on the party list, there would be an opening for new politicians to enter the Knesset, unless an incumbent ran in that particular constituency.9 While the adoption of constituencies was meant to enhance parliamentary turn9 Wherever an incumbent ran, without facing another incumbent, the possibility for a new candidate to win was practically nil. In the 1996 primaries, out of the 11 Labor MKs who ran in a constituency, without another incumbent, 10 won the top position. All five of the Likud MKs who ran in constituencies did so without being opposed by another incumbent, and four won the most votes. Therefore, the overwhelming majority of new candidates who won in their constituencies did so without running against an incumbent.

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over, it added a new dimension of local interests into Israeli politics that exacerbated the impact of the primaries in general. In other words, the creation of constituencies in the primaries created a new link between MKs and local interests—a constituency link which had hitherto been absent in Israeli politics—further circumventing the party leadership. Interviews with both MKs and party officials indicate that those who were involved in the deliberations on the kind of primaries that the parties would adopt— particularly on the inclusion of constituencies—acknowledge that the possibility of local interests coming into conflict with national party interests was a factor that they failed to address. The Israeli political system, the political parties and the party leadership were thus ill-prepared for the emergence of this new factor.10 Special interests, particularly large trade unions with a geographically concentrated membership, did see the potential that the constituency primaries presented, and some managed to manipulate both the system and the political parties quite successfully. The best example of this manipulation is Yaakov Shefi. In 1992, Shefi was head of the Israel Aircraft Industry (IAI) workers union. He campaigned among IAI workers, urging them to join the Labor Party, regardless of their political leanings, and vote in the party primaries. The goal was to insert an IAI representative into the Labor party’s Knesset delegation. Shefi placed second in the Dan constituency primary, with only 4187 votes, and won the 35th place on Labor’s list. After Labor won the 1992 election and headed the government, MK Shefi voted against the budget—which is akin to a vote of no-confidence—when it was presented to the Knesset by the governing coalition to which he belonged and which had only a one-seat majority. At the same time, he headed a strike at IAI, closing down Israel’s major international airport in protest against the Labor government. MK Shefi openly stated that he need not be loyal to two groups of voters—the party members and the party voters—but to just a sub-set of one group, the 4187 party members in his constituency who backed him in the primaries (the average number of votes for each of the 44 Labor seats was over 20 000). While it might be relatively difficult for special interests to insert a candidate into a party list, the structure of the primaries makes it quite possible for them to block a particular candidate from being selected—even on the national list. For example, Gedalia Gal, the former chair of the Knesset’s most powerful committee, the Finance Committee, supported a bill to break the monopoly of the Israel Electric Company (IEC). The IEC workers were instructed by their union to join the Labor party and not to vote for him in the 1996 party primary. He subsequently lost his position on the party list. In short, the primaries, and particularly the constituency primaries, brought about a significant new set of linkages in Israeli politics between the party and the individ10 In the late 1980s, a bipartisan committee during a period of national unity government recommended electoral reform for the Knesset which included dismantling the single national constituency and adopting a mixed member system with districts (Waterman and Zefadia, 1992). The early demise of that national unity coalition killed the proposed districting plan. In the first decade after this proposed reform died, a district based electoral system has not been seriously discussed in Israeli politics.

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ual MK, the party and the voters, and the individual MK and the voters. The ramifications of these new relationships are already having a negative impact on partisan behavior in the Knesset. The data gathered after the 1996 elections, the first in which the majority of MKs were chosen in primaries, indicates that the introduction of constituencies into the party primaries in Israel has indeed created a new type of geographical political representation, resulting in a new pattern of geographically oriented parliamentary behavior and a new type of geographically identified MK.11 That is, there are already rather clear indicators that individual MKs selected from constituencies—for example, in the Labor party 12 of the 34 MKs (35%, see Appendix A) were selected in constituencies—are behaving in a manner inconsistent with their non-constituency counterparts, a manner that increasingly thwarts partisan control and coordination in the Knesset. Candidates elected from constituencies, via the primaries, ran campaigns geared toward a distinct local audience, and consequently perceive themselves as responsible to their particular, geographically-concentrated voters. Most ran their campaigns on purely local issues, and advocated a personal, not a party, connection between the constituency voters and ‘their’ selected MK. For example, slogans such as ‘Your MK’ or ‘You Have An MK’ were popular in their campaigns. Many of the constituency candidates published 10-point programs, most of which lacked any mention of a party line or specific ideology, focusing instead only on constituency issues in a non-partisan manner. In the interviews conducted (see Appendix A), when asked what were their most important legislative activities, none mentioned party forums or national issues. In progress reports that many sent out to their constituencies after their election, they pointed out that their proposed bills and legislative activity are largely, if not entirely, aimed at constituency issues. Content analysis of Knesset speeches by constituency-based MKs during the 1998 budgetary debate demonstrates this new trend in Israeli politics. These MKs focused more on particular issues in the budget—by a more than 2:1 ratio—while avoiding comprehensive debates; they tended to tie the discussion to the situation in their constituencies (constituency-selected MKs, when they spoke on matters such as education, child welfare and unemployment, tied these issues to their constituencies 100% of the time); they preferred to focus on social issues (lack of affordable housing, public transportation, etc.) than on the dominant foreign affairs and defense topics; and they used the first-person format (a 3:1 ratio) and personal experiences (a 2:1 ratio) in their speeches much more than other MKs. They also prefer to be

11 Geographically identified MKs had existed before, largely due to the party leadership’s decision to place MKs from geographically identified sectors on their party lists (Uslaner, 1985). These MKs had a local base, many held local office, yet their political career rested largely with the party and they were very few in number. The situation in the 1990s is dramatically different. The number of geographically identified MKs has expanded tremendously, it in no longer possible for an MK to simultaneously hold local office—which should have reduced the local identification of MKs, but due to the introduction of geographical constituencies in the party primaries this type of MK actually increased—and the possibility of a locally popular candidate being ‘forced’ on the party (discussed later in the article) was impossible in those days.

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members of ‘social’ Knesset committees—such as Employment and Welfare or Interior and Environment—as opposed to the more prestigious committees—such as Foreign Affairs and Defense. It is interesting to note that this most important of committees, which deals with the dominant issue in Israeli politics, has a total of 17 members and 8 substitutes. Of these 25 MKs, none were selected in a constituency primary. In short, the constituency-selected MKs might be willing to toe the party line on the dominant national issue of foreign policy and defence, but in the social domain— where their constituency support and interests lie—they not only asserted their geographical linkage but showed a higher regard for these topics. In response, the party leaders have had to acknowledge the existence of two kinds of MKs, a ‘national’ MK and a ‘constituency’ MK, both of whom are, as a result of the primaries, increasingly autonomous, but on different issues. Interviews conducted in 1997 and 1998 with constituency-selected MKs showed that some of them began their relationships with their respective parties in a stormy fashion. Most stated that they received little to no party support during the primaries, while some claimed that regardless of whether the party supported their initial candidacy, it turned against them during the primaries and supported their opponents. There were those who stated that their own party leaders had asked them to withdraw from the race, because they preferred that the constituency be represented by someone else. These prospective MKs could not have survived prior to the introduction of party primaries. Therefore, the relationship between constituency-selected MKs with their party and its leadership is quite different from anything remotely familiar to Israeli party politics. That is, the selection, election and functioning of an MK who is unwanted by the party, opposed by the leadership, but is supported by a geographical constituency within the party—and who can cross party lines—is a nascent phenomenon in Israeli politics. This is so because of one of the unique aspects of the primaries in Israel’s major parties elaborated earlier—namely, that a victory in the constituency primary is tantamount to a victory in the general elections. The ‘electoral constituency’ of these MKs, in an electoral system that has no constituencies, is, therefore, the geographical constituency within the party. When asked if they would be willing to cooperate across party lines, in order to further the interests of their constituencies, all responded positively. Many have already established forums, or lobbies, to advance their geographically defined issues, which do indeed cut across party lines. For example, the lobby for the Negev region, or the lobby for the city of Haifa, finds MKs working together not only from different parties, but from both the coalition and the opposition, sometimes at odds with their party leadership. The possible adversarial relationship between a party and its internal geographical constituency is exhibited in a recent example. Prior to the 1999 elections to the 15th Knesset, the Labor party rearranged its party list and placed the Haifa constituency— a traditional Labor stronghold—in a rather low position (previously #16 in the 1996 elections, it was demoted to #29 in the 1999 elections). In response, the local party officials and members warned that if the party leadership did not changed the ranking of the constituency, they would close all the party branches in the city and refuse

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to cooperate with the party during the election campaign. Some even threatened to switch to another party. The national party leadership was, ultimately, forced to rescind its decision and grant the constituency a higher position, #23, on the party list. When asked if they perceived themselves as belonging to a specific geographical constituency or to a political camp—it must be stressed, again, that MKs are elected by proportional representation on fixed party lists in a single national constituency— all answered that they belong to their constituency. One MK even went as far to say that he was elected ‘to represent a constituency’. When asked if they felt obliged to advance constituency issues, all answered positively. Most declared that when confronted by a decision between the party’s policy and their constituency’s need, they would, and have, supported the latter (e.g. a Likud MK advocated transferring funds already allocated to the territories captured in the 1967 war—which is his party’s policy—to the peripheral areas within the 1967 borders where his constituency is located). Some openly show their priorities by stating that if invited to two places, a party meeting attended by the prime minister and a gathering held in their constituency, they will go to the latter because that is their power base. As a result, a majority of the public who has approached these ‘constituency’ MKs with requests is from their particular constituencies, and not the party voters or members at large. In response, these MKs answer their constituency mail first, regardless of importance vis-a`-vis correspondence from elsewhere. Some stated that they would never ask which party the person making a request had voted for, because they hoped to cultivate constituency support from across party lines. A few even mentioned that they did not care which party the person voted for, because the system allowed someone to join a particular party and vote in the party primaries, without having to support that party in the national elections.12 When asked if they were willing to infringe upon party discipline, all answered positively, most stating that if it ran counter to their constituency interests they would break with their party on most issues. Only one constituency-selected MK said that he would do so sparingly, if it was an issue of principle. Finally and most devastatingly for partisan discipline, each and every one of the constituency-selected MKs voted against the party line more than once during the abridged life of the 14th Knesset, and some did so on issues that were on the national agenda and significant for their party (such as the redeployment of the Israeli Defense Forces from Hebron in accordance with the Declaration of Principles signed between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the approval of new government ministers in a governing coalition that possessed a one-seat majority and the religious conversion law which is one of the most explosive issues on the domestic agenda). The significance of this break with party discipline has cost the government many of the important subjects it wanted to advance—including, for example, such vital issues as the annual budget

12 It is interesting to note that if a constituency-selected MK decides to resign from the Knesset, the replacement is not the person who won the second position in the constituency primary, but rather the next person on the party list, who will have no connection to that particular constituency. The constituency will, therefore, lose ‘its’ representative in the Knesset until the next general elections.

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and tax reform, which the government was forced to either withdraw several times or to cancel. In the interviews it was important to differentiate the replies of two kinds of constituency selected MKs. The first see the constituency as a permanent home, while the second see it only as a temporary one. For the former, the constituency is the place they plan to run in the following primaries as well (some had already run twice in the same constituency primary). For the latter, the constituency was a relatively easy place from which to enter parliament, but they had some sort of longer term political ambitions to rise both in the party and to achieve ministerial positions, which required their eventual transfer to the national list in the party primary. The difference in the responses from these two kinds of constituency selected MKs sustains the argument made thus far. Those MKs who saw the constituency as their permanent home placed more emphasis on building and maintaining their geographically concentrated power base. Those MKs who perceived the constituency as only a temporary home also placed significant emphasis on partisan policy ideals.

Theoretical implications When it comes to research concerning the US Congress, the perceived importance to elected officials, and to their prospective replacements, of performing constituency service has been broadly confirmed. Mayhew (1974) established an ‘electoral connection’ that induces members of the Congress to engage in constituency service. This kind of service includes not only assistance and support for individuals and groups in the constituency, as well as for the entire constituency, but also the maintenance of contact with the constituency in order to sustain the representative’s visibility. In short, much research on the Congress has found that members dedicate a great deal of time to constituency service because they see it as a way to improve their chances for reelection (Bond, 1985; Fenno, 1978; Fiorina, 1977; Johannes, 1984). Thus, Jacobsen (1987: 132) concludes that, ‘Efforts by House members to appeal for support on the basis of their personal virtues and services to the district and its inhabitants rather than on their party, ideology, or policy stances are evidently both wise and usually successful’. These arguments have since been extended in an effort to explain the behavior of representatives in other democratic systems as well (Cain et al., 1987; Carey, 1996). While representation on the basis of geographical constituencies makes it more likely that representatives will be engaged in the promotion of local interests, an electoral system based on single-member constituencies can facilitate the access of constituency interests into the policy-making process, but it cannot guarantee it. The stark contrast between Britain and the United States in this regard has drawn attention for over a decade. In the United States, a representative who lacks a strong connection with his or her constituency has an electoral liability, while in Britain representatives are almost entirely at the mercy of national politics. There is only a small ‘personal’ vote in Britain, many representatives do not reside in their constituencies, marginal seats are won or lost based on national swings and party cohesion is the norm. British

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MPs, therefore, have little incentive or ability to promote constituency interests. The geographical basis of representation thus has a very different impact on the behavior of representatives in the United States and Britain. In the attempt to better assess the relationship between geographical representation—i.e. the electoral system—and legislative behavior, one of the important factors that the comparative research has begun to look into is not just the structure of electoral systems but their influence on voter decisions. The consequences of electoral rules for the behavior of elected representatives are not necessarily connected to their geographical nature, but rather to the ability of the voters to utilize them for the advancement of geographical interests. Bogdanor (1983: 248) concluded that electoral systems can ‘profoundly affect the relationship between elected members and their constituents. The relationships are, of course, likely to be weakest under party list systems where there is no choice of candidate.’ He later pointed out that if a country uses a single national constituency, ‘it makes no sense to speak of the elector contacting “his” or “her” MP, and this must radically affect relationships between electors and parliamentarians …. How are grievances settled when the elector has no constituency MP?’ (Bogdanor, 1985: 7–8) As Carey and Shugart (1997: 418) stated, ‘it is widely acknowledged that electoral rules shape the extent to which individual politicians can benefit electorally by developing personal reputations distinct from the party’. Their basic conclusion is that, ‘Seat allocation formulas affect candidates’ incentives to campaign on a personal rather than party reputation’ (Carey and Shugart, 1997: 417). That is, elected representatives have a greater incentive to perform constituency service according to the degree to which candidates can be elected individually by the voters, rather than as part of a fixed party list. In fixed list proportional representation systems, therefore, there is a disincentive for voters to try to use their vote to reward a representative who helped them with personal or constituency needs. This disincentive exists because the voters can only vote for the party’s list of candidates, which may cause them to inadvertently reward candidates higher or lower on the party list whom they do not support. Gladdish (1991) validates such a lack of voter–MP links in the Netherlands, which, like Israel, has no parliamentary constituencies. He found that Dutch citizens considered their MPs largely irrelevant to their local concerns, and that this attitude of indifference is reciprocated by the MPs, who virtually ignored constituency contact. In contrast, voters in open list systems, or in single member districts, can target their votes directly to the candidate who helped them and their constituency. Although the analytical framework has indeed expanded beyond the simple presence of geographical constituencies in electoral systems, the literature does not mention the practically counter-factual influence on voter incentives in intra-party elections. The Israeli case shows that representatives who are beholden to their party for getting elected, due to the unitary geographical nature of the electoral system, will not necessarily work to build the party’s reputation, but can rather try to build their own personal reputation within a geographically defined constituency in order to win support. The Israeli case, therefore, teaches us that even though the representative receives his or her mandate from the party, in a fixed list proportional representation system, this factor will not necessarily prevail when it comes to the representative’s

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incentives for legislative behavior, unless the research takes into account not only the inter-party electoral arena but also the intra-party electoral rules. Little research has been devoted to the relationship between inter- and intra-party elections. Moreover, whatever literature does exist seems to run counter to the evidence provided by the Israeli case. Czudnowski (1975), for example, suggested that the electoral system can influence the process of candidate selection—particularly its centralization. ‘Party selection seems to be closely related to the electoral system. When a candidate has to be elected by a local or regional constituency, he will tend to be selected by the local or regional party organization. In large multi-member constituencies central party organizations have a far greater influence, if not a monopoly, on candidate selection’. (Czudnowski, 1975: 221) Although Gallagher and Marsh (1988) were slightly more skeptical about this proposition, Norris (1996: 199) states that, ‘More systematic evidence, however, confirms the relationship … countries characterized by elections where the whole country forms one constituency have highly centralized recruitment processes’. The little theoretical literature on the relationship between electoral systems and candidate selection, and the resulting consequences for legislative behavior, can be placed in question due to the new data emanating from Israel. Moreover, those few who do connect between inter-party and intra-party elections refer to the impact of constituencies in the former on the localized nature of the latter. They do not, it appears, make a connection between the localization of candidate selection and constituency-oriented representation or legislative behavior. The Israeli case shows that all three aspects—candidate selection, electoral system and legislative behavior—are inter-related. Bogdanor (1985: 6) asks, ‘Can any relationship be determined between the method of election of parliamentary representatives and the way in which they are linked to those who they represent—and if so, can the electoral system be isolated as a fundamental causative factor?’ The answer provided by the Israeli case is a resounding no, unless, again, scholars of electoral systems expand their definition of electoral rules to include those within parties, and not only those between parties, when they try to assess the consequences of electoral rules for both the voters and their representatives. Therefore, Israel is either a deviant country, in which case the data can be dismissed, or it exhibits evidence that the literature has failed to address properly. If the answer is not the former, then the Israeli case can begin to teach us that geographically-based candidate selection does affect the significance of political divisions in the legislature and the political careers of MPs, through the accentuation of both geographical interests and geographical representation—in spite of the type, or absence, of geographical constituencies.

Conclusion: stronger constituencies, weaker parties, fragile democracy?

Thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth from thee. Isaiah XLIX: 17

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Historically, parties in Israel were not simply hierarchical, cohesive and disciplined actors, they dominated in both the political and the social arenas. The parties in Israel had a tradition of political activity that tended to penetrate practically every aspect of society in a manner much more intensive than what was acceptable in most democracies (Akzin, 1955). The political parties model has, therefore, always been the most appropriate one for assessing political representation in Israel, as it has been in other parliamentary democracies (Miller and Stokes, 1963; Thomassen, 1994). However, the adoption of party primaries has weakened the political parties model in Israel, negatively affecting partisan organization, internal cohesion and party discipline. The 1996 elections marked a watershed in Israeli politics. The separate election of the prime minister and the Knesset led to substantial split voting (ballot-splitting), which resulted in the decimation of the two major parties (Arian and Shamir, 1999). In light of these results, it has thus become apparent to all observers that the political parties in Israel have been significantly weakened. The primaries exacerbate the destruction of the party organizations in Israel brought on by the direct election of the prime minister by accentuating the individual politician over the collective party organization. It is true that the simultaneous usage of direct elections and party primaries produced both reciprocating and cumulative consequences for the breakdown of partisan cohesion. However, many of the effects of party primaries were already visible during the 13th Knesset, when the Labor party already used primaries to select its list of candidates, but before the direct election of the prime minister was implemented. But it is the constituency primaries that exacerbate the decimation of the parties by introducing geographically defined constituency interests that cut across party lines in an electoral, political and party system that lacks constituencies. The primaries, in general, granted the individual MK a more autonomous stand vis-a`-vis the party leadership and dismantled party discipline. The constituency-selected MKs, in particular, forced their parties to be more lenient when it concerned their sensitivity to constituency interests. These MKs are willing to break party discipline, yet are not subject to punishment from either the party organization or the leadership. By raising local issues that could come into conflict with the party’s national agenda, constituency primaries present an inherently dangerous element for party cohesion. Therefore, the geographical consequences of primaries—intra-party electoral reform—for the political parties and for the stability of Israeli democracy, are no less significant than the reform of the overall electoral and political system in Israel. The internal devastation of the political parties as aggregating and functional entities that moderate social conflicts and stabilize the governing process is, regretfully, a byproduct of intra-party electoral reforms that dangerously jeopardizes Israeli democracy. The decline in the status, organization and functioning capabilities of the political parties in Israel, in light of the adoption of primaries, is of prima facie validity. As one constituency-selected MK stated, ‘The party is bankrupt, it has no power and no ability. The problem is the new selection method, which has yet to fully show us just how strong the single representative can be’. The adoption of intra-party

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electoral reform that is geographically disjointed from the inter-party electoral system can, therefore, have ominous consequences. While ‘rebellion’ by MKs is more prevalent in the Knesset now than it was in the past, this is in line with the comparative literature which shows that elected politicians are becoming less willing to toe the party line, whatever the system used for their selection. However, this is not simply a comprehensive phenomenon which is also manifested in Israel. The Israeli MKs selected through party primaries are more rebellious than those from parties which do not use primaries. Of those MKs selected by primaries, there is more of a rebellious tendency among the constituency selected MKs as opposed to those from the national list. And, it is the geographically selected constituency MK which is the most rebellious of all. While it is not clear why the parties adopted a system of candidate selection which they should have known would exhibit negative consequences for party discipline, other than capitalizing on the appearance of internal party democracy by the voteseeking party, it has become clear that the inconsistency between intra-party and inter-party election methods cannot persist. Prior to the 1999 elections to the 15th Knesset, three of the four parties which had used primaries in 1996 decided to return to a method of candidate selection in which they could exercise increased control. The Labor party remains the only one in Israel to use primaries—which it has done for a third time—but even here the placement of geographical constituency selected candidates has been demoted. In the 1996 elections, four of the eight geographical constituencies were able to elected not one but two MKs, while the 1999 list includes only one candidate from each of the geographical constituencies, some of which were placed in ‘unsafe’ positions on the list. In other words, the party has learned that it is the geographical element, not simply the constituency factor, which is the most inimical to its interests and cohesion.13 Israel serves as an example of the significance and ramifications of intra-party electoral reform for political geography. There is a dearth of literature and research on intra-party elections, as opposed to inter-party elections—a lacuna in the political science literature that must be corrected.

Interviews Interviews were conducted with all Members of the 14th Knesset which were selected to the two major party lists from geographical constituencies. This amounted to 18 MKs. The interviews included a questionnaire which each MK was asked to

13 The first geographical constituency selected candidate on the 1999 Labor party list is in the 18th position, down from the 13th position in 1996, while the second is in the 23rd position, down from the 18th in 1996. However, the first non-geographical constituency selected candidate on the 1999 party list is in the 17th position, the same as in 1996, while the second non-geographical constituency candidate is higher on the 1999 list (#19) than in 1996 (#24). Out of the top 25 positions on the 1999 party list, only three are from constituencies, compared to seven in 1996. If Labor would have won the same number of seats in 1999 as in 1996, the representation of constituency selected MK would have declined by 25%.

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answer, follow up questions based on their replies and a period of open discussion. The interviews were conducted by the author and two research assistants. As the interviews progressed, several MKs were interviewed a second time (mostly those interviewed first), or order to obtain information that was either made available in the subsequent interviews or discovered at a later stage. Content analysis of speeches made by MKs in parliament was done based on the officially published Knesset Record.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank Tzvia Baron and Meira Hanson for their diligent research assistance, as well as two anonymous referees from Political Geography for their comments and suggestions.

Appendix A See Table 1.

References Akzin, B., 1955. The role of parties in Israeli democracy. Journal of Politics 17. Arian, A., Shamir, M. (Eds.), 1999. The Elections in Israel—1996. State University of New York Press, Albany. Bar, A., 1996. Primaries and Other Methods of Candidate Selection. Israel Democracy Institute, Jerusalem [in Hebrew]. Bond, J.R., 1985. Dimensions of district attention over time. American Journal of Political Science 29. Baram, U., 1996. Changes in the political system. In: Doron, G. (Ed.), The Electoral Revolution. Ha’Kibbutz Ha’Meuchad, Tel Aviv [in Hebrew]. Begin, Z.B., 1996. Primaries—the price for democracy. In: Doron, G. (Ed.), The Electoral Revolution. Ha’Kibbutz Ha’Meuchad, Tel Aviv [in Hebrew]. Bogdanor, V., 1983. Conclusion: electoral systems and party systems. In: Bogdanor, V., Butler, D. (Eds.), Democracy and Elections: Electoral Systems and Their Political Consequences. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge. Bogdanor, V., 1985. Introduction. In: Bogdanor, V. (Ed.), Representatives of the People? Parliamentarians and Constituents in Western Democracies. Gower, England. Cain, B.E., Ferejohn, J., Fiorina, M. (Eds.), 1987. The Personal Vote: Constituency Service and Electoral Independence. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. Carey, J.M., 1996. Term Limits and Legislative Representation. Cambridge University Press, New York. Carey, J.M., Shugart, M.S., 1997. Incentives to cultivate a personal vote: a rank ordering of electoral formulas. Electoral Studies 14. Czudnowski, M.M., 1975. Political Recruitment. In: Greenstein, F., Polsby, N.W. (Eds.), Handbook of Political Science. Addison–Wesley, Reading, MA. Diamond, L., Sprinzak, E. (Eds.), 1993. Israeli Democracy Under Stress. Rienner, Boulder, CO. Doron, G., Goldberg, G., 1990. No big deal: democratization of the nominating process. In: Arian, A., Shamir, M. (Eds.), The Elections in Israel—1988. Westview Press, Boulder, CO. Epstein, L.D., 1964. A comparative study of Canadian parties. American Political Science Review 55.

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Table 1 Order of Labor Party MKs elected to the 14th Knesseta No.

Description

1 2–6 7 8–12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Party Chairman (elected separately) #1–5 from the national list Party Secretary-General (reserved) #6–10 from the national list #1 from the Central constituency #1 from the Sharon constituency #11 from the national list #1 from the Haifa constituency #1 from the minorities constituency #1 from the Tel-Aviv constituency #1 from the kibbutzim constituency #12 from the national list #1 from the Dan constituency #1 from the Southern constituency #13 from the national list #1 from the Russian immigrants constituency #1 from the Jerusalem constituency #1 from the moshavim constituency #14 from the national list #1 from the Northern constituency #1 from the immigrants constituency #1 from the Druze constituency #2 from the Central constituency #2 from the Haifa constituency #2 from the Sharon constituency #15 from the national list #2 from the Dan constituency

a One in every 10 slots was reserved for a woman, based on their positions on the national list, if they did not reach a higher slot on their own. Constituency candidates appear in italics.Labor elected 34 MKs, one of whom resigned after a few months, which brought the following candidate on the list into the Knesset.Of the 34 Labor MKs, 18 were selected from constituencies (53%), and two-thirds of them (12 MKs) were from geographical constituencies.

Fenno, R.F., 1978. Home Style: House Members in Their Districts. Little, Brown, Boston, MA. Fiorina, M.P., 1977. Congress, Keystone of the Washington Establishment. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. Gallagher, M., Marsh, M. (Eds.), 1988. Candidate Selection in Comparative Perspective: The Secret Garden of Politics. Sage, London. Gladdish, K., 1991. Governing From the Centre: Politics and Policy-Making in the Netherlands. Hurst, London. Goldberg, G., Hoffman, S., 1983. Nominations in Israel: the politics of institutionalization. In: Arian, A. (Ed.), The Elections in Israel—1981. Ramot, Tel-Aviv. Hazan, R.Y., 1996. Presidential parliamentarism: direct popular election of the prime minister, Israel’s new electoral and political system. Electoral Studies 15. Hazan, R.Y., 1997a. The 1996 intra-party elections in Israel: adopting party primaries. Electoral Studies 16.

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Hazan, R.Y., 1997b. Executive-legislative relation in an era of accelerated reform: reshaping government in Israel. Legislative Studies Quarterly 22. Jacobson, G.C., 1987. The Politics of Congressional Elections. Little, Brown, Boston, MA. Johannes, J.R., 1984. To Serve the People: Congress and Constituency Service. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Mayhew, D.R., 1974. Congress, The Electoral Connection. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT. Miller, W., Stokes, D.E., 1963. Constituency influence in congress. American Political Science Review 57. Norris, P., 1996. Legislative recruitment. In: LeDuc, L., Niemi, R.G., Norris, P. (Eds.), Comparing Democracies: Elections and Voting in Global Perspective. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Rahat, G., Sher-Hadar, N., 1999. The 1996 party primaries and their political consequences. In: Arian, A., Shamir, M. (Eds.), Elections in Israel—1996. State University of New York Press, Albany. Schattschneider, E.E., 1942. Party Government. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York. Thomassen, J., 1994. Empirical research into political representation: failing democracy or failing models? In: Jennings, M.K., Mann, T.E. (Eds.), Elections at Home and Abroad. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. Urieli, N., Barzilay, A., 1982. The Rise and Fall of the Democratic Movement for Change. Reshafim, Tel-Aviv [in Hebrew]. Uslaner, E.C., 1985. Casework and institutional design: redeeming promises in the promised land. Legislative Studies Quarterly 10. Waterman, S., Zefadia, E., 1992. Political geography in practice II: Israeli electoral reform in action. Political Geography 11.