The Elections in Israel 1992

Edited by Asher Arian & Michal Shamir

Subjects: Israel Studies
Series: SUNY series in Israeli Studies
Paperback : 9780791421765, 336 pages, November 1994
Hardcover : 9780791421758, 336 pages, November 1994

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Table of contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

Introduction

MICHAL SHAMIR and ASHER ARIAN

PART I: Political Turnover

1 Two Reversals: Why 1992 Was Not 1977

ASHER ARIAN and MICHAL SHAMIR

2 Modelling Victory in the 1992 Election

RON SHACHAR and MICHAL SHAMIR

PART II: Group Influences

3 Penetrating the System: The Politics of Collective Identities

HANNA HERZOG

4 Equal But Different? The Gender Gap in Israel's 1992 Elections

YAEL YISHAI

5 Shas—The Sephardic Torah Guardians: Religious "Movement" and Political Power

AARON P. WILLIS

6 The Political Behavior of the Arabs in Israel in the 1992 Elections: Integration versus Segregation

MAJID AL-HAJ

7 Voting Trends of Recent Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union

AHARON FEIN

PART III: Nonvoting Constituencies

8 The PLO and the 1992 Elections—A Skillful Participant?

HILLEL FRISCH

9 U.S.-Israel Relations and Israel's 1992 Elections

BARRY RUBIN

PART IV: Political Communication

10 The 1992 Campaign: Valence and Position Dimensions

JONATHAN MENDILOW

11 Voters as Consumers: Audience Perspectives on the Election Broadcasts

GADI WOLFSFELD

12 Caveat Populi Quaestor: The 1992 Preelections Polls in the Israeli Press

GABRIEL WEIMANN

PART V: Reforming the System

13 The Rise of Instrumental Voting: The Campaign for Political Reform

TAMAR HERMANN

14 Reforming Israel's Voting Schemes

GIDEON DORON and BARRY KAY

Index

Description

As the momentum toward peace in the Middle East surges and wanes, the intensity of politics in Israel takes on added relevance. There can be little doubt that the historic Israel-PLO peace accord could not have occurred were it not for the turnabout elections of 1992. This volume, the seventh in a series begun in 1969, carries on the tradition of offering in-depth analyses of the major issues, actors, and parties involved in Israeli politics.

Leading social scientists from Israeli and North American universities and research institutes, using different methods and coming from diverse intellectual traditions, address questions such as whether the elections were a referendum on the return of the Territories; what roles the PLO and the United States played in the election results; how technological changes in political communications, packaging of candidates, and opinion polls affected the results; what contributions such groups as women, Arabs, and members of various religions made to the change in government; and whether the political reforms instituted before the elections resulted from changes in the mood of the electorate or brought about changes in Israel's policy. Contributors to the volume include Majid Al-Haj, Gideon Doron, Aaron Fein, Hillel Frisch, Tamar Hermann, Hanna Herzog, Barry Kay, Jonathan Mendilow, Barry Rubin, Ron Shachar, Gabriel Weimann, Aaron Willis, Gadi Wolfsfeld, and Yael Yishai.

Asher Arian is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and is Professor of Political Science at the University of Haifa. Michal Shamir is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Tel Aviv University.

Reviews

"This collection will be the definitive work on the Israeli elections of 1992, and a major book on Israeli politics generally. Its contributors include an extensive variety of subjects, and the editors are the most sophisticated and knowledgeable persons in the field." — Gerald M. Pomper, Rutgers University