Fragmentation or Cooperation: Consociational Structures in Israel & Germany

In the past several years, Israeli politics have entered an unprecedented era of divisiveness and vitriol. After five elections in four years and crisis after crisis, an analysis of this decline of institutions is crucial to understanding how democratic trajectories function, especially in societies as diverse as Israel’s. Germany’s contrasting maintenance of many of Israel’s lost democratic habits serves as an intriguing prism through which to view Israel. What do the two countries’ systems do differently? This paper will argue that Israel’s recent turn and Germany’s stability are the result of the fundamental flaws of the Israeli political system’s structure as it relates to Arend Lijphart’s consociational model for governing divided societies. Even if not in a purely consociational system, are there features of Germany’s political structure Israel could implement? Three of Lijphart’s tenets will be dissected with respect to these differences: segmental autonomy, proportional representation, and balance of power.