NATIONAL COALITIONS IN ISRAEL, 1984-1990: THE POLITICS OF "NOT LOSING" A Thesis for the degree of Ph.D. Presented to the University of London By Dan Korn London School of Economics May 1992 1 - UMI Number: U549931 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Disscrrlation Publishing UMI U549931 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 o ON CA lA N Abstract For six years since 1984 Israel underwent a unique p o litic al experience: i t was ruled by national coalitions supported by more than 75% of the members of parliament. Larger-than-minimal coalitions have always been problematic for traditional coalition theory. The Israeli case provides therefore an opportunity to examine the various actors' motivations and behaviour, as they reflect on coalition theory at 1arge. The assumption that actors are driven by "win maximization" is central to formal models of coalition theory. This assumption led to predictions of winning coalitions which are minimal in size, membership or ideological scope. Non-minimal coalitions were regarded as suboptimal choices, explainable on an ad hoc basis, e.g. national emergency. A careful examination of Israe l's "grand coalitions" suggests that "not losing" is at least as strong a motivation as "win maximization". This notion focuses on what actors stand to lose in case of failure, rather than on what they could win i f a ll turns out w ell. I t implies that actors would strive to be included in coalition, regardless of its size. Coalition payoffs to be won or lost fall into two categories - office payoffs, in terms of power, position, and resources, or ideology, in terms of shaping policy according to one's p o litic al convictions. An important observation which pertains particularly to polarized systems is that the desire to prevent a rival ideology from prevailing forms a major part in actors' "not losing" considerations. - 2 While coalition p o litics takes place in the interparty arena, attention should be drawn to intraparty politics as well. It may happen that individual actors stand to lose a great deal by forming a minimal winning coalition, which would strengthen the positions of challengers for party leadership. In this case they may feel compelled to form larger coalitions, in order to reduce payoffs to their in-house rivals. In a nutshell, it is suggested herein that if apparently suboptimal, larger-than-minimal coalitions are formed and maintained, it may be because actors are motivated by "not losing". When risks seem too great and uncertainty looms large, as is usually the case, "win maximization" cannot provide a satisfactory heuristic tool, unless supplemented by "loss minimization". Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction 9 The Israeli Case 11 Coalition Politics in Israel 13 Outline 15 Sources 19 Chapter Two: A Workers Party's Paradise: Labour Party Dominance, 1948-1977 22 Minority or Majority? 22 Israe l's Party System, 1948-1977 23 The Numbers Game: The Only Game in Town 26 Where the Action Is 31 Weights and Counter-Weights 38 Surplus Coalitions 42 The Coalition Actors 42 Coalition Membership 46 Moderate and "Closed" Coalitions 49 Bargaining for a Limited Partnership 50 Coalition Payoffs and Tradeoffs 53 Office Payoffs 54 Policy Payoffs 58 Continuity and Change 60 Labour's "Not Losing" Governments 62 Chapter Three: Control from the Sidelines: The Likud's Narrow-Based Governments, 1977-1984 74 From Dominance to Competition 74 Dimensions of Change 74 Labour's Leadership Crisis 78 The Legitimation of the Opposition 80 Enter the Likud 83 The Ideological Shift to the Right 86 Labour Means Old, Likud Means Young 88 Ashkenazi versus Sephardi 89 Competition and Polarization, 1977-1984 93 The Changing Power Relations 93 - 4 - Fragmentation 94 Polarization 97 Volatility 98 Socio-Political Cleavages 99 Competitiveness 100 The Three-Ringed Circus 101 Much Change, L ittle S ta b ility 103 The Likud's "Not Losing" Coalitions 106 Off-Centre Control of Coalition P olitics 106 The Peace Accord 111 The War in Lebanon 113 Coalition Membership - Home in on the Range 114 Coalition Bargaining 116 The Minor League 120 Institutional Constraints 121 Coalition Payoffs: Office vs. Policy 122 Office Payoffs 123 Policy Payoffs 127 Not Losing or Winning by Default? 132 Chapter Four: The Politics of "Not Losing" 135 Minimal Coalitions 135 The P olitics of "Not Losing" 145 A Working Model for "Not Losing" 151 The Large Parties 152 The Extreme Parties 155 The Centre Party 156 Intraparty Politics 159 Chapter Five: Forming a National Unity Government, 1984: 164 Strategy and Tactics 164 Should Opposition Rush to Assume Power? 165 Consensus Is Competition 169 The Losers - Likud and More So Labour 173 The Coalition Bargaining Process 176 Election Aftermath 176 Bargaining Strategies 178 Labour's Strategy 178 The Likud's Strategy 182 - 5 - The Small Parties' Strategy 186 Any Which Way But Lose 191 The Importance of Intraparty P olitics 194 Why So Many Partners? 198 The Pre-Nuptial Agreement 204 Was There Any Alternative? 210 Chapter Six: Rotation vs. Status Quo: Bipolar Coalition P o litic s , 1984-1986 214 Prime Ministerial Rotation 214 How Did I t Come About? 214 The Sequence 216 The Personal Aspect 220 Was There A Safe Way to Avoid Rotation? 222 Implementation 226 The Transfer of Power 229 The Days of Shimon Peres 233 The Non-Polarizing Issues 233 The Lebanon War 233 The Economic Emergency Plan 236 The Taba Dispute 238 The Shin-Bet Affair 241 The Polarizing Issues 244 The Settlement Issue 244 The Peace Process 245 Personal Issues 251 Intraparty Politics 258 The Politics of Rotation 263 Chapter Seven: Status Quo vs. Early Elections: Bipolar Coalition P o litic s , 1986-1988 271 The Institution of Mutual Veto 271 The Formation of the Inner Cabinet 271 The Composition of the Inner Cabinet 276 The Modus Operandi of the Inner Cabinet 278 Government Collective Responsibility 280 Was the Inner Cabinet Really Necessary? 282 The Prime Ministers' Forum 284 The Days of Yitzhak Shamir 288 - 6 - The Non-Polarizing Issues 288 Economic Policy 288 The Pollard Affair 290 The Lavie Project 292 The Polarizing Issues 297 Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising 297 The Settlement Issue 299 The Peace Process 301 Personal Issues 308 Intraparty Politics 310 The Politics of Early Elections 314 The Parliamentary Opposition 321 Chapter Eight: As Things Change, They Remain the Same: The 1988 National Unity Government 325 The Formation of the 1988 NUG 325 The 1988 Elections 325 The Coalition Bargaining Process 330 Intraparty Politics and the Formation of the 1988 NUG 338 Unequal Partners 343 Manipulating the Peace Process 344 The Politics of Narrow-Based Government 353 Winning the Battle, Losing the War 353 Chapter Nine: Conclusions 375 Coalition Formation 377 The Maintenance Phase 383 Applicability 390 Postscript 394 Appendix A: A Glossary of Parties 395 Appendix B: The 1984 Coalition Agreement 398 Appendix C: 405 The 1988 Coalition Agreement 405 Members of the National Unity Governments 406 Appendix D: Interviews 411 Bibliography 413 - 7 - List of Tables Table 2.1 Election Results: Political Parties 25 Table 2.2 Mapai/Labour vs. the second largest l i s t , 1949 - 1973 27 Table 2.3 Coalitions Formed by Mapai/Labour, 1949-1974 48 Table 2.4 The Interim Coalition Government by Parties - 1948 62 Table 2.5 Mapai/Labour's strength in the Coalition Governments 63 Table 3.1 Likud and Labour Gains in A Variety of Age Groups 89 Table 3.2 Labour and Likud Vote by Ethnic Origin, 1969-1977 90 Table 3.3 Results of the 1977 and 1981 Knesset Election 95 Table 3.4 Electoral Volatility 98 Table 3.5 Electoral Gains in the Knesset and the Histadrut 102 Table 3.6 Coalitions Formed by the Likud 115 Table 4.1 Winning Coalitions Predicted by Five Theories 137 Table 4.2 A Hypothetical Distribution of Parliamentary Seats 151 Table 5.1 The 1984 Legislative Blocking Coalitions 177 Table 8.1 The 1988 Election Results 326 Table 9.1 The Factional System of the National Coalitions 385 List of Charts Chart 2.1: Concentric Circles 29 Chart 2.2: Parties along the Left-to-Right Ideological Continuum 37 Chart 2.3: The P olitical Party Map, 1949-1977 37 Chart 3.1: Labour and Likud Knesset Seats, 1965-1984 94 Chart 3.2: An Off-centre Coalition Leader 106 - 8 Chapter One Introduction This dissertation describes the National Unity Governments which were formed in Israel following the 1984 and then the 1988 general elections, and ruled the country for almost six years. As a case study, this unique experience will provide the backdrop for a theoretical analysis of coalition formation and maintenance. I t w ill be shown that parties which have to choose between forming a minimal winning coalition and an oversized coalition may make the latter, suboptimal choice, although i t clearly leads to loss of payoffs to themselves. How can we explain such a behaviour? As a case in point, in 1988 Mr. Yitzhak Shamir, the leader of Israe l's Likud party, was able to form a narrow-based coalition between his party and several small religious and nationalist parties; this coalition would have included 65 out of 120 Knesset members, which would have met the "minimal winning" crite rio n .