Polarized by Law: The Liberal-Popular Divide over the Power to Decide

In 2023 Israeli society was torn by a severe political crisis over constitutional changes proposed by the government. The division crossed lines of political identity and exposed an axis of polarization over how the constitutional order allocates power – between popularly elected and elite non-elected institutions. A central issue in this type of polarization is who holds the power to make substantive policy decisions. Polarized identities relate to the extent to which each camp views itself as included and represented, or excluded and under-represented, in non-elected liberal loci of power. Liberal constitutionalism and its agents are not only affected by this type of polarization; they are central actors, identified with one of the rival camps. I discuss this axis of polarization in relation to the innate tension in liberal democracy between its conflicting foundational logics, the popular and the liberal, and explore the broader implications for liberal democracy and for constitutional actors, when the institutional and sociological balance between these logics becomes the object of political polarization.