Professor Paul Eidelberg,* writing for Israel National News, calls on Israelis to “stop worshipping the sacred cow of proportional representation in a single nationwide electoral district.”
Indeed, idolatry can have rather serious consequences. The core of Prof. Eidelberg’s criticism is hardly novel; in fact, as he notes, it goes all the way back to the state’s first Prime Minister:
Ben-Gurion saw that by making the country a single electoral district, political parties would have to compete for Knesset seats on the basis of proportional representation (PR); and that, given a low electoral threshold, an absurd profusion of parties would emerge that would: (1) fragment the Knesset; (2) splinter the cabinet into rival party leaders; (3) hinder the pursuit of coherent and resolute national policies; and (4) enable elected officials to ignore public opinion with impunity.
The claim that elected officials face no retribution for violating public opinion could be subjected to empirical testing, and probably refutation. However, that is not my intention here. Obviously, Israel’s party system is fragmented, its cabinets often comprise political opposites and can be unstable, and the closed lists mean that individual MKs have little direct accountability to voters.
The solutions Prof. Eidelberg proposes are not a move to a disproportional system such as FPTP, but rather the introduction of regional districting within a PR system. He specifically mentions MMP, two-tier list PR (as in Denmark and Sweden), and STV. However, would any of these systems overcome the core problems Prof. Eidelberg sees with the current system?
If we assume that either MMP or a two-tier list system would have national compensation, the degree of proportionality would be unchanged from the current system. It takes somewhat of a leap of faith to believe that either system would result in a reduction in the number of parties. In fact, I am aware of studies that have shown that even a pure FPTP system would not sgnificantly change the number of parties, because, while the seat allocation is carried out nationwide, the main parties in fact have distinct regional constituencies. (Labor is strong in Tel Aviv and Haifa, Likud and the religious parties have their base in Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Arab parties in Nazareth, etc.)
Given the regionalized distirbution of party support within Israel, the use of either STV or any districted PR that was based on relatively small (and perhaps variably sized) multi-seat districts without nationwide compensation would result in disproportional allocation of political power–something Prof. Eidelberg indicates in the piece he does not wish to countenance.
Whatever criticisms one can make about the Israeli electoral system–and there are many–we should not lose sight of the fact that sometimes countries have chosen and maintained the electoral systems that are most compatible with the actual social and political divisions that democracy must somehow reconcile. I have read many pieces on electoral reform in Israel–Prof. Eidelberg’s worthwhile piece being merely the most recent–but I have yet to find one that convinced me that any fundamental electoral reform would produce a more manageable system for the country. MMP or two-tier PR–with national compensation in either case–might have the salutary effect of enhencing accountability of MKs to constituents, but it would probably have little effect on interparty fragmentation or intra-cabinet rivalries.
It is certainly a debate worth continuing, however.
* Eidelberg is a Professor at Bar Ilan University, and Founder and Director of The Foundation for Constitutional Democracy.
I have done some reading of his Foundation’s website, and I will say that I find his substantive political positions absolutely repugnant. (In fact, they are quite openly racist.) Nevertheless, the debate on the electoral system is a core issue of F&V, and I will leave it here; I ask any potential commentators to confine discussion to the electoral system alone.
It seems to me like the two biggest steps wouldn’t involve changing the nationwide constituency, but rather (1) raising the threshold and (2) introducing open lists, ineffectual as they generally are. Cutting the number of parties through a higher threshold would then reduce that disproportionate influence of small parties in forming a government.
FPTP would probably eliminate many of the smaller parties, over the span of a couple elections. But that’s probably not a worthwhile price to pay for making so many votes worthless.
The Netherlands is the closest electoral comparison, but their two major parties have managed to stay fairly strong. Is this just a matter of more salient societal/ideological cleavages in Israel that have undercut any larger parties?
Seed planted by Alex — 28 September 2006 @ 17:00
May be one of the reasons to stick with a nationwide district is that in a country with disputed borders and a rapidly evolving population, drawing district borders and distributing seats over the territory would be more difficult than in any other country.
Seed planted by Bancki — 29 September 2006 @ 00:21
Yes, drawing electoral districts in Israel would be divisive, both internally and internationally. Some districts would have to encompass areas that are not internationally recognized as Israeli territory, and as new settlements are established or dismantled (as with Gaza shortly before the last election), districts would have to be re-drawn or their magnitudes adjusted.
I believe the uncertainty over borders was the main original justification for the single district.
I am not sure how advocates of districting propose to get around this. It certainly is, in principle, manageable, though I think this would be a far bigger challenge for redistricting (whether single or multi-seat) than any other country faces.
Seed planted by MSS — 29 September 2006 @ 06:40
I’m not sure I buy the argument that fragmentation of the Knesset is a problem. The threshold could stand to be a couple percent higher, sure. But there are many real divisions in Israeli society, and the number of parties simply reflects that. It reduces the weird cognitive dissonance we see in other countries, eg: Socialists and Blairites trying to pretend they like each other and both belong in the Labour party. Or traditionalist pure-laine Québecois and ethnic leftist metropolitans trying to get along in the PQ. Would Israelis really be better served if Hadash voters had to choose between the UAL and Meretz, and so on?
The stability and coherent policy arguments are more understandable. After seeing the way a strong leader like Sharon could get things done anyway, I’m a bit skeptical that this is a real problem—but let’s grant for the moment that it is. There ought to be a way, aside from revamping the electoral system, to create disincentives against precipitating an election. Here in Canada the electorate often punishes whichever party is seen as having brought down the government, though I’m not sure how that started–aside from not wanting to go out to vote in the middle of the winter! What if we made it easier for a minority government to operate in Israel—perhaps allow the continuance of last year’s budget without a majority vote. Maybe that could avert the “small party holding the budget hostage” problem? Or given how money-grubbing politicians are, maybe we could simply increase their salaries as they near the end of a term
The last issue, accountability, is the only one that seems exceptionally bad in Israel. The best way to solve such an issue probably is some sort of constituency system, and Israel does already have a division into districts for administrative purposes. (I was sure we discussed this before either here or chez The Head Heeb, but Google is failing me.) Such a division wouldn’t be a horrible choice, but Israel isn’t really large enough for the districts to be very meaningful–you might as well simply randomly assign each citizen a number between one and six.
Seeing as geographic constituencies aren’t as useful in a small country like Israel, perhaps one could create non-geographic constituencies? I’ve never been a big fan of ethno-religious constituencies à la Lebanon or New Zealand, but it would be less objectionable if voters could choose among a range of constituencies including profession, social class, urban/rural division, gender, favorite sport, etc. Or simple make each party into an effective constituency by mandating wide primaries where all party members can vote. It seems to have worked all right for Avoda, I don’t think it would be a disaster if all parties had to do the same.
Seed planted by Vasi — 08 October 2006 @ 14:15
2007 Israeli Non-Resolution: An electoral reform proposal
The President’s panel on political reform (The Megidor Committee) is expected today to make a formal proposal that Israel’s current single national-district system be replaced with a two-tier system.
Scion grafted by Fruits and Votes — 01 January 2007 @ 12:50