Israel: increased political fragmentation despite increasing thresholds for a parliamentary seat

For the last 70 years, the main features of Israel’s extreme proportional representation electoral system have been preserved. The constant debate about the system involves the tension between many parties, coalitional instability, and governance problems. Despite serious electoral reform attempts in the Knesset (Israeli parliament), the vast majority failed to achieve parliamentary consensus (with the exception of the direct popular election of the Prime Minister in Israel, 1996–2003). Minor changes adopted in recent decades concerned only the electoral threshold, the percentage of the popular vote required to obtain a seat in the Knesset. This threshold increased incrementally until 2014, when it stood at 3.25%, still relatively low compared to other countries. However, the discussion on the electoral threshold has recently arisen again in the wake of Israel’s fifth election in three years, between 2019 and 2022. This research analyzes and evaluates the consequences of the relatively moderate reform of the electoral threshold for the parties’ strategies, voting behavior, and the party system in Israel. The results indicate that, in the short term, the increase in the threshold prompted small parties to form alliances prior to the election, increased the competition between parties to recruit attractive candidates, and led to a decline in the number of wasted votes. On the other hand, in the longer term, the party system remained basically unchanged, underscoring the continuation of societal fragmentation