ABSTRACT
Israel is a parliamentary democracy with a highly divided society. Numerous political parties represent the many social groups (e.g., Jews and Arabs, secular and religious) in its complex society and compete for parliamentary seats in general elections that see on average a dozen parties win seats. The highly proportional electoral system – in which the whole country serves as a single, nationwide electoral district – translates Israel’s divided society into an extreme multiparty system. This produces, in turn, governments that are based on multiparty coalitions. Yet while political power is horizontally dispersed among many political parties, it is vertically concentrated in the hands of a unitary and highly centralized national government.
