Public Management In Israel

The "Israeli History, Politics and Society" series comprises multidisciplinary studies that range from elections and the Yom Kippur war to the search for a true Israeli identity and the various initiatives to foment or prevent the peace process. This volume brings together a set of articles that try to estimate the direction of developments in Israeli public administration: whether ministries will remain under the ambit of the Weberian model, follow the New Public Management model, or move towards a mix of the two. Each essay focuses on a specific factor which may inhibit reforms, such as the weakness of mechanisms for policy control, monitoring and evaluation; lack of co-ordination between the different ministries; lack of effective accountability mechanisms; an administrative culture that is characterized by frequent infringements of moral integrity; a high level of politicization; and a Supreme Court which plays a paramount role by routinely intervening in the practices of public administration as well as in the business of other governmental and non-governmental institutions. Each article probes how these distinctive features of Israeli public administration reflect underlying traits of the nation's history, culture and geography, and gauges the extent to which formal structures provide an indication of how policy-making and programme implementation really operate.

As government management in Israel is gradually replaced by private sector management, it is becoming apparent that the collective-oriented mission of government cannot be fulfilled by the private sector or by the non-profit organizations of civil society. This book provides an analysis of the machinery of government in Israel, highlighting the inadequacy of the private sector as an alternative and how public management will need to cope with the new challenges and pressures of the 21st century. Providing hitherto unpublished data and analysis in English for the first time, this book gives a comprehensive analysis of the issue of public and private-sector management. The author examines the tasks of the civil service; the legal foundation of the public management machinery; and the profile of civil servants, and looks at the unwieldy budget process; the prevalence (and absence) of regulation; and external and internal mechanisms of oversight. This analysis is balanced by a detailed exposition of Israel's political-administrative culture with its excessive centralization, secrecy, turf protection, and legacy of improvisation, and their effect on policymaking and administration. This comprehensive and detailed examination of public management in Israel will be of great interest both to students and scholars of business and management, government and politics, and to policymakers in the region.

An examination of the current Israeli government, covering public policies such as health, housing and transport. The volume covers the institutional as well as the political and the bureaucratic framework within which public policies have been made and implemented.

This book is the first to explore collaborative governance arrangements in Israel. It offers a new, modular definition of collaborative governance, focusing on its contributions toward public values and democracy. The book discusses different kinds of collaborations, their scope, implications and impact on governability in Israel, a country which provides an interesting setting for learning about collaborative governance, given its heterogenous population and the nature of the relationship between the state’s civil service, the business sector and the civil society. The book presents examples derived from local, and central government levels, and from policy areas such as education, regulation and local government.

This book examines de facto regulation frameworks and methods in a variety of areas, such as banking, transportation, cyberspace, the non-profit sector, and more. Authored by experts in the field, this book deals with the “big” questions about the idea of regulation. It reveals the tentativeness of current regulatory schemes, the difficulties in balancing between the shared objective of protecting the public interest and other interests such as market stability, and promoting competition. The case studies point to the need for better planning and for more coherent policies. This collection offers to students of public policy, management and law, policy makers and practitioners a broad spectrum of insights—theoretical and practical—and contributes to the ongoing deliberations on the ways that regulatory arrangements could serve the public interest more efficiently.

Israel is considered a developed country yet both security issues and its frequently changing demographic makeup set Israel apart and imply that Israeli policy analysts must operate in a unique environment and grapple with exceptional challenges. This volume, part of the successful International Library of Policy Analysis series, brings together for the first time a comprehensive study of policy analysis in Israel. Following an introductory chapter that discusses the paradoxical history of policy analysis in Israel by Yehezkel Dror, leading figures from both the Israeli public and academic spheres discuss different aspects of policy analysis in Israel. While Israeli policy analysis is in some respects unique, Israel also represents a broad category of states that could be considered as policy analysis "late developers". Hence, while Israeli policy analysis is fascinating in and of itself, its study also holds important lessons for other countries.