Elections in Israel, 2019–2021

Michal Shamir is the Alvin Z. Rubinstein Professor of Political Science at Tel-Aviv University. Her research focuses on democratic politics, including elections, party systems, public opinion, tolerance, and democratic culture.Gideon Rahat is the chair of Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and holds the Gersten Family Chair in Political Science. He is also a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. He has been studying the politics of reform, democratic institutions, political parties, candidate and leadership selection, and political personalization.

• Introduction. 1. Four Elections in Two Years: A Unique Crisis or a Sign of Things to Come?. 2. The Four Elections 2019-2021: A Chronological Overview. Part 1: Personalization in the Israeli “parteienstaat”. 3. Personalization and Personalism in the 2019-2021 Elections: Another Climax of Personal Politics?. 4. King Bibi: The Personification of Democratic Values in the 2019-2021 Election Cycle. 5. A Populist Leader Under Neoliberal Logic. 6. Netanyahu and the Very Short History of the “Right Wing Bloc”. 7. Public and Legal Responsibility of Senior Elected Representatives in the Executive Branch: Benjamin Netanyahu as a Case Study. Part 2: Voters, Parties and the Media. 8. Persistent Optimism Under Political Uncertainty: The Evolution of Citizens’ Election Projections During a Protracted Political Crisis. 9. Ethnic Demons and Class Specters: Ethnic and Class Voting In Israel Revisited. 10. Joint Lists in Israeli Politics. 11. The Arab Electorate and Parties, 2019-2021: Towards a non-Zionist Israeli Identity?. 12. Three in a (Right Wing) Boat: Media, Politicians, and the Public in the Age of Digital Communication. Index.

The convoluted spectacle of four Israeli elections within two years poses a forbidding challenge to analysts. In this welcome continuation of The Elections in Israel series, Michal Shamir and Gideon Rahat meet this challenge with resounding success. Not only do the essays in this volume cover the elections themselves authoritatively, but they put this passage of Israeli politics into a data-rich historical and comparative perspective. Of particular note, the elections serve as a laboratory for analysis of the Netanyahu era and the personalization of Israeli politics that it embodies. The book also includes striking insights on challenges to Israeli democracy in the context of worldwide erosion of democracy. This volume should be on the reading list of both experts and casual students of Israeli politics. Alan DowtyPast President, Association for Israel StudiesThis is the sixteenth volume in the series The Elections in Israel, an impressive academic endeavor initiated by the late Prof. Asher Arian in 1969. The articles in these volumes propose multi-faceted analysis of the political situation, of voting patterns, and central issues that were on the agenda in each election campaign. But, even more so, they document the changes that have taken place in Israeli society, political culture and its characteristics, and in the essence of Israeli democracy. These volumes have brought together leading social scientists from Israel and other countries and placed the election results and their analysis under the microscope in order to propose in-depth insights into politics and society in Israel. The latest volume covers the four elections of 2019-2021 which all took place within a two-year span. This was undoubtedly an intellectual and empirical challenge confronting the editors Prof. Michal Shamir and Prof. Gideon Rahat that they have successfully overcome. The final product includes the work of senior and junior scholars highlighting a painful lesson that teaches us much about the fragility of a democracy in crisis, about a divided society, about the radicalization of internal and external conflicts, and about dramatic transformations in Israeli political culture. This is essential reading for all who value democracy and concerned about its future. Hanna Herzog Professor Emerita, Tel Aviv University, and co-Director of the Center for Advancement of Women in the Public Sphere, Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, JerusalemFour elections in two years is an amazing set of circumstances for any polity to weather. Shamir and Rahat have done a wonderful job, taking us through this landscape. They navigate us through the plus ça change of the increasing personalization of elections and plus c’est la même chose of four elections with similar outcomes and traditional bases of campaigning and voting.John AldrichPfizer-Pratt University ProfessorDepartment of Political ScienceDuke University.