Original scientific paper

Primary Elections in Israeli Parties

Mirjana Kasapović ; Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia

Abstract

Party's primary elections for decades arouse interest in academic and political public. This article discusses the causes and consequences of the introduction of the primary election in the Labor Party and the Likud as the two major parties in the history of Israel. In contrast to high normative evaluation of primary election, it was shown in Israel that they are associated with temporary increase of utilitarian members who resort to cross-over voting, with the growth of political clientelism and populism, with deepening of factional conflicts in parties, with weakening of their ideological cohesiveness and ability to aggregate different social interests, with the destruction of the legislative process and, ultimately, with the endanger of the foundations of parliamentary democracy. Therefore we concluded that selection procedures must not only be evaluated according to criteria of inclusivity and participation, but we should have in mind competitiveness, r-representation and accountability, too. To achieve all these objectives, we propose more complex procedures of selection in which primary elections would be one, final stage.

Keywords

political parties; party's primary elections; Israel

Hrčak ID:

291403

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/291403

Publication date:

17.12.2009.

Article data in other languages: croatian

Visits: 215 *