Spokes of Regime Change in Israel
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Abstract
The proposal introduced in January 2023 for a ‘judicial overhaul’ in Israel has been characterized as a seismic event. Labeled a ‘reform’ by supporters and a ‘coup’ by skeptics, the proposal is better understood as part of a long process rather than a sudden event. This process involves gradual but persistent executive aggrandizement advanced by weakening multiple institutions of horizontal accountability and the media, alongside the imposition of restrictions on oppositional organizational capacity. Accordingly, the process should be defined in terms of autocratization. The spokes analogy is invoked to highlight the interconnectedness between the various realms that collectively underpin the regime.
Contributor Notes
ODED HAKLAI is a professor in the Department of Political Studies and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy and Diversity at Queen's University. He is the author of Palestinian Ethnonationalism in Israel and co-editor (with Jacques Bertrand) of Democratization and Ethnic Minorities: Conflict or Compromise and Settlers in Contested Lands: Territorial Disputes and Ethnic Conflict (with Neophytos Loizides). Since 2021, Haklai has been co-editor of Israel Studies Review. Email: haklai@queensu.ca