Democracy, Clan Politics and Weak Governance: The Case of the Arab Municipalities in Israel

The Arab citizens of Israel lived until the late 1940s in self-sufficient, semi-autonomous villages, where the majority of them were peasants who finished elementary school at most. During the 1950s and 1960s, the government of Israel started to establish local municipalities, whose head and council would be elected in free and fair democratic elections. This article examines, first, how the traditional social unit, the clan or extended family, has dominated the democratic municipal institutions since their establishment. Second, what is the strength of the municipal institutions in upholding the rule of law and extracting direct property taxes from a clan society? The article concludes that the municipal institution in the Arab towns has emerged as a weak institution that has been unable to impose the rule of law or extract taxes from the village residents, thus providing poor services to the residents in return. This weakness and poor performance is attributed to two factors: discrimination by the state of Israel in allocating resources to the Arab municipalities and the clan politics that has obstructed the municipal attempts of penetrating society and extracting taxes.