The Elections in Israel 1996

6. "Old" versus "New" Politics in the 1996 Elections

CHAPTER 6 "Old" versus "New" Politics in the 1996 Elections YAEL YISHAI University of Haifa Among the most noted and studied developments of recent decades have been those associated with sweeping social changes leading to the emergence of "new politics" in industrial societies. The "new politics " syndrome emerged in a new world, where affluence replaced poverty, where consumer goods once considered luxurious were widely available, and where peace substituted warfare. Prosperity and conciliation gave rise to the rejection of nationalism and the onset of secularization. Israel ostensibly voted against these processes in 1996. By bringing to power a coalition of religious and nationalist parties, headed by Likud, it presumably rejected notions associated with "new politics." By casting a vote for tradition and patriotism the Israeli people apparently endorsed old-style politics. Yet this chapter will show that the Israeli polity is more complex than its visible appearance. It will reveal that, notwithstanding electoral results, the scene is ripe for new politics. Furthermore, ideas associated with new politics are widely diffused among the Israeli public. The clash between old and new politics in Israel is intriguing both theoretically and practically. Israel is considered an affluent industrialized democracy. Israelis, like their Western counterparts, enjoy the fruits of abundance. Their wish is to live in suburbia, tour the world, and relish economic prosperity. At the same time, the country has experienced several wars during the past generation. These contrasting circumstances raise important questions regarding the conditions under which new politics emerges. When the two foundations of the new politics-affluence and security-clash, which has the upper hand? Will the people adopt the "new" attitudes emanating from their economic affluence and its concomitant social attributes, or will they 137 138 Yishai stick to the ones associated with fear and insecurity? Do the 1996 election results testify that Israel lags far behind other industrial democracies in entering the era of the new politics? The chapter, in attempting to answer these questions, starts with the elaboration of the concept "new politics." It continues by delineating the environmental, attitudinal, behavioral, and political aspects of the concept. It concludes with some hypothetical explanations for the unique combination of old and new politics in contemporary Israeli politics and society. WHAT IS NEW POLITICS? As the name implies, "new politics" portrays change and movement, a distinction from the old-style politics. Five simultaneous emerging elements have been identified in countries moving ahead to new politics. The first approach centers on the environment that gave rise to the political shift. The socioeconomic affluence that swept the industrial world from the 1960s did not escape the eyes of social scientists who professed the coming of the postindustrial society (Bell 1973). The proponents of postindustrialism predicted the "end of ideology" (Bell 1960), an ideology associated with class politics, which was expected to wane with the general prosperity. The underlying assumption was that structural changes in the economy and the society were necessary, though perhaps not sufficient, conditions for the emergence of the new politics. Second, the most popular approach toward the study of new politics focuses on values and attitudes. The pioneering work of Inglehart (1971) on the shift from materialist to postmaterialist values paved the way for a wealth of research into attitudinal change, particularly in advanced industrial democracies (the literature on this subject is voluminous . See, for example, Dalton 1996; Inglehart 1990; Inglehart and Abramson 1994). The gist of the postmaterialist argument is that people , especially those who have grown up under conditions of socioeconomic affluence, prefer life quality over material affluence. These people put high priority on self-actualization and esteem rather than on economic security. It was predicted that the shift from materialist to postmaterialist orientations would bring about cultural change involving decrease in support for established national institutions and rise in the awareness of individual rights. The third approach focuses not on the values themselves but on how these values affect partisan alignments (Reiter 1993; Bean and Kelley 1995; McAllister and Studlar 1995). The proponents of this a roach look s ecifically at the consequences of value change for "Old" versus "New" in the 1996 Elections 139 party systems. New values were found to produce realignment in the party system as socioeconomic developments, followed by attitudinal changes, generated structural changes in the political map (Dalton et al. 1984; Muller-Rommel 1990, 1990a; Kitschelt 1990; Poguntke 1993; Borre 1995). The expectation was that the shift in...