Jonathan Mendilow

Ideology, Party Change, and Electoral Campaigns in Israel, 1965 - 2001 Jonathan Mendilow

Explores the turbulent changes in Israel party politics since the mid-1960s.

The tumultuous and rapid political change experienced by Israel since 1965 has been reflected in the history of its party system. In this book, Jonathan Mendilow examines the party and party system transformations through the lens of the electoral campaigns that defined and reflected them. He shows that the relative stability of the dominant party system bequeathed from the pre-independence era was shattered in the 1960s, and replaced by cluster parties that vied for power in the ideological center, only to decline and be replaced in turn in the 1980s and early 1990s by ideological party blocs locked in centrifugal competition. With the separate direct election of the prime minister since the mid-1990s, there has been yet a third profound realignment in party structures, ideologies, and modes of campaigning, according to Mendilow.

?Mendilow has produced an interesting study of the Israeli party system. It should be of interest not only to students of Israeli and Middle East politics but also to students of comparative politics on a broader front.? — International Journal of Middle East Studies

"For anyone interested in Israeli political parties, this is a most impressive source. Mendilow provides a new way of conceptualizing the Israeli party system. The topic is important, not only in terms of Israeli politics, but also for comparative politics as a field."— Harold M. Waller, coauthor of Maintaining Consensus: The Canadian Jewish Polity in the Postwar World