Interest Groups and Political Change in Israel

By Marcia Drezon-Tepler

Series: SUNY series in Israeli Studies
Paperback : 9780791402085, 308 pages, July 1990
Hardcover : 9780791402078, 308 pages, July 1990

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Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. A Theoretical Framework

Part I. The Setting

Chapter 2. Politics and the Economy

Chapter 3. The System in Operation

Part II. The Manufacturers' Association

Chapter 4. The Early Years: Alternatives to Politicization

Chapter 5. Dominant Party Politics

Chapter 6. A Continuing Spearhead for Change

Part III. Ihud ha-Kvutzot ve-ha-Kibbutzim

Chapter 7. An Interest Group Emerges

Chapter 8. The Ihud in Operation

Chapter 9. Growing Group Consciousness and Government Relations

Part IV. Gush Emunim

Chapter 10. Gush Emunim in the Labor Era

Chapter 11. Elections 1977

Chapter 12. Gush Emunim, the Likud, and the Eighties

Part V. Conclusion

Chapter 13. System, Groups, and Change

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Description

This book challenges the conventional view of Israeli politics as an ideological, stron party system. Focusing on three important and influential interest groups, the Gush Emunim, the Ihud kibbutz federation, and the Manufacturers' Association, Drezon-Tepler presents a comprehensive view of Israel's society and politics. Integrated here are unpublished sources, and material from personal interviews with prominent personalities including Prime Ministers Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, and Minister Ariel Sharon. The book illuminates such current controversial topics in Israel as the influence of the volatile Gush Emunim, the country's chronically unstable economy, and the continued vitality of the kibbutz movement.

Relevant beyond Israel's borders, this book enhances understanding of systems, groups, and change, presenting an original, analytical framework of three models for group and party decision making within democracies.

Marcia Drezon-Tepler is a political scientist and Middle East specialist with a Ph. D. from Columbia University, and a former Fulbright Scholar in Israel.

Reviews

"This is the first systematic exploratory analysis of interest groups in Israel's bewildering political system. Drezon-Tepler's fresh insights help clarify the elusive informal interparty cooperation on such issues of common concern as industry, rural socialism, and settlements in occupied territories. " — J. C. Hurewitz, Columbia University