Institutional Checks and Balances

The research group on Institutional Checks and Balances will examine in depth the existing and possible mechanisms for strengthening democratic resilience in Israel. It will identify areas where intervention is necessary and possible. This group will investigate how to ensure the absence of barriers to a change in power and ensuring institutional checks and balances that are immune to a hostile takeover by a casual majority, or to strong economic forces, beyond the limited model of judicial review. The fundamental thinking about mechanisms is based on the assumption that the moment of crisis in which Israeli democracy finds itself can generate a broad political consensus in relation to the need to anchor and strengthen the loose control mechanisms of Israeli democracy that were revealed in all their weakness during the year 2023, as well as to enable a new way of thinking about the strengthening of the local government and the expansion of its areas of activity ( for example in the field of education and welfare).

Thus, for example, the group will examine in depth the issue of regulating the internal operations of political parties parties and examine ways to restore the party as an inter- and intra-generational democratic body, as a necessary element in securing robust and inclusive political competition. The gap between the weak regulation of parties in Israel and the rigid regulation in many other countries such as the USA, France and India shows a fruitful potential for increasing the participation of the general public in all its shades in the democratic process, and a broad and important field of research. There is, for example, the question of requiring parties to hold primary elections In preparation for the general elections, and what kind of elections should be held. In the US, for example, the institution of primary elections was adopted in the various US states in order to overcome political corruption.

In Israel, the adoption of primaries in the early nineties reduced the dependence of party members on the party leadership. This resulted in a significantly loosened reins by which the government controlled the Knesset. Another possible intervention in the party institution is by requiring adequate gender representation in the lists for the Knesset (as exists in France and Spain) and even requiring adequate representation for women and minorities in the same party (as exists in India regarding low castes). Such adequate representation (as opposed to a blanket ban on the existence of ethnic parties, an attempt that has failed in the countries where it has been applied), may possibly promote the integration of sectors that have not participated so far or were not properly represented and even lead to more equality in the distribution of resources and the identification of the common good. The well-known economist Thomas Piketty sees these mechanisms as a key to increasing economic equality in society and strengthening the middle class, and these, as we mentioned above, have great significance in terms of strengthening trust in democracy. The center will try to examine ways to incentivize female voters to go to the polls (and perhaps even at the cost of adopting the Australian model of compulsory voting), and to reduce the incentive of the incumbents to remain in office, for example by limiting terms of office, in light of the assumption that those elected to office will prefer a short-term personal interest to ensure being re-elected.