Abstract
For the last 70 years, the main features of Israel’s extreme proportional representation electoral system have been preserved. The constant debate about the system involves the tension between many parties, coalitional instability, and governance problems. Despite serious electoral reform attempts in the Knesset (Israeli parliament), the vast majority failed to achieve parliamentary consensus (with the exception of the direct popular election of the Prime Minister in Israel, 1996–2003). Minor changes adopted in recent decades concerned only the electoral threshold, the percentage of the popular vote required to obtain a seat in the Knesset. This threshold increased incrementally until 2014, when it stood at 3.25%, still relatively low compared to other countries. However, the discussion on the electoral threshold has recently arisen again in the wake of Israel’s fifth election in three years, between 2019 and 2022. This research analyzes and evaluates the consequences of the relatively moderate reform of the electoral threshold for the parties’ strategies, voting behavior, and the party system in Israel. The results indicate that, in the short term, the increase in the threshold prompted small parties to form alliances prior to the election, increased the competition between parties to recruit attractive candidates, and led to a decline in the number of wasted votes. On the other hand, in the longer term, the party system remained basically unchanged, underscoring the continuation of societal fragmentation
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Notes
In Spain, there are 52 electoral districts with varying size districts ranging from single-member districts (Ceuta and Melilla) to a 35-seat district (the Madrid metropolitan area). However, although Spanish law sets the legal threshold at 3%, in practice this legal threshold is relevant only for two districts: Madrid and Barcelona (with 35 and 31 seats, respectively). This is because the threshold of inclusion in the other districts is higher than the 3% imposed by the election law. In other words, the legal threshold in Spain is irrelevant for all of the other 50 electoral districts (Hopkin 2005).
In Slovakia, the legal threshold is 5% for single parties, 7% for coalitions of two or three parties, and 10% for coalitions of four or more parties.
In some countries such as the Czech Republic, Italy, and Turkey, among others, there is also an electoral threshold at the supranational level. For further information see Eizenberg and Harsgor (2017).
Four factions—Hadash, Ta’al, Balad and the United Arab List (the southern branch of the Islamic Movement).
Avi Gabbay, the head of the Labor Party, shocked the MKs of the Zionist Union faction when he announced on January 1, 2019 that he was breaking up the partnership with Tzipi Livni, the head of The Movement party (Hofman 2019).
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Atmor, N. Israel: increased political fragmentation despite increasing thresholds for a parliamentary seat. Z Vgl Polit Wiss 16, 447–461 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12286-022-00549-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12286-022-00549-1