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The 1981 Elections and the Changing Fortunes of the Israeli Labour Party

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Yael Azmon
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ONE OF THE INNOVATIONS OF THE 1981 ELECTIONS IN ISRAEL which caught the eye, was the frequent use of ‘this time’ in campaign slogans. ‘This time only the Labour Alignment!’ ‘This time the Likud!’ shouted the slogans from all the billboards. This is an appeal to political support based on a short-term time perspective. This appeal differs greatly from that which characterized the Israeli ideological, mass-membership parties in previous periods.

The change in party slogans is a response to changes in the electorate. These changes in the electorate are most clearly reflected in the magnitude of the ‘undecided‘ vote and of its oscillation between different parties. The ‘undecided’ vote which used to be very low, amounted to about 40 per cent according to polls made in 1977 in the preelection period, and to about 30 per cent in the period preceding the 1981 elections. Moreover, the polls pointed to a particularly great oscillation of the electorate in the pre-1981 election period: the political forecast in December 1980 was around 60 Labour seats and around 28 Likud seats. In the beginnin of June 1981, the pendulum swung. The forecast for Labour fell to 30-33 seats while of Likud rose to 47 or even 49 seats. In the elections the race between Likud and Labour was very close. The results were 47 to Labour and 48 to Likud (as against 32 Labour and 43 Likud in 1977).

Type
Original Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , 01 October 1981 , pp. 432 - 446
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1981

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References

1 For the 1977 elections, see Asher Arian, ‘The Israeli Electorate, 1977’. In Asher Arian (ed.), Election in Israel 1977, Jerusalem Academic Press (Jerusalem), 1980.

2 Migvan, published by the Labour Party, Tel‐Aviv, July 1977 (in Hebrew). Dan Horowitz, ‘More than a change in government’, Jerusalem, The Jerusalem Quarterly, No. 5, Fall 1977, pp. 3–19.

3 Eisenstadt, S. N., Israeli Society, London, Weidenfeld, 1947, ch. 9, pp. 285–367 Google Scholar. Yonathan Shapiro, The Formative Years of the Israeli Labour Party, London, Sage, 1977. Dan Horowitz & Moshe Lissak, The Origins of the Israeli Polity, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1980.

4 We use ‘political bargaining’ much as Dahl and Lindblom do; namely, as a reciprocal form of control in which political elites participate. (In contrast to ‘hierarchy’ which is a ‘unilateral’ form of control.) R. A. Dahl and C. E. Lindblom, Politics Economics and Welfare, New York, Harper, 1953, p. 227, p. 329.

5 S. N. Eisenstadt, op. cit..

6 Khayyam Z. Paltiel, ‘Consociational Elements in the Israeli Coalition System—a Preliminary Prospectus’, was presented at the Round Table on Political Integration of the International Political Science Association in Jerusalem, September 9–13, 1974. See also Horowitz and Lissak, op. cit., Ch. 2.

7 Lorwin, V. R., ‘Segmented Pluralism: Ideological Cleavages and Political Cohesion in the Smaller European Democracies’, in McRae, Kenneth D. (ed.), Consociational Democracy: Political Accommodation in Segmented Societies, McClelland, Toronto, 1974, pp. 33–69 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 For the first period see: Dov Weintraub, Moshe Lissak and Yael Azmon, Moshava, Kibbutz, and Moshav, Patterns of Jewish Settlement and Development in Palestine, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1969, Part II, pp. 159–274; S. N. Eisenstadt, op. cit.; Dan Horowitz & Moshe Lissak, op. cit.; Yosef Shapira, Hapoel Hazair—The Idea and Practice, Tel‐Aviv, Ayanot, 1968 (in Hebrew); Yosef Gorni, Achdut Haavoda 1919–1930, The Ideological Principles and the Political System, Hakibbutz Hameuchad Press, Israel, 1973, ch. 10, pp. 265–95 (in Hebrew); Anita Shapira, Futile Struggle. The Jewish Labour Controversy 1929–1939. Hakibbutz Hameuchad Publishing House, Israel, 1977 (in Hebrew).

9 For the second period see: S. N. Eisenstadt, op. cit., Part II; Peter Medding, Mapai In Israel, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1972.

10 S. N. Eisenstadt, Op. cit., Part II, ch. 9, pp. 285–306.

11 Uzi Ben‐Ziman, ‘Government under a Feudal System’, Ha'aretz, 12 November 1971; ‘Feudalism in the Israel Government’, Ha'aretz, 24 April 1974.

12 Paltiel, Op. cit..

13 Halevi, Nadav and Klinow‐Malul, Ruth, The Economic Development of Israel, New York, Praeger, 1968, pp. 89–96 Google Scholar.

14 Caspi, Dan, ‘Patterns of Floating Vote in Israel’, State and Government, Jerusalem, Vol. 1, No. 3, 1972, pp. 81–98 Google Scholar.

15 Diskin, Avraham, ‘The 1977 Interparty Distances: A Three‐level Analysis’ in Asher, Arian (ed.), The Elections in Israel, 1977, Jerusalem, Jerusalem Academic Press, 1979.Google Scholar