The impact of national characteristics on local citizen participation: A developmental research framework applied to Israel

Abstract

This article suggests that physical, social, political, economic, and national or structural characteristics such as social composition or political culture actually determine patterns and fluctuations in the levels of citizen participation in local planning. Assuming a developmental process, the paper reviews the relationships between these characteristics and local participation in Israel throughout the one hundred years from the inception of the Zionist movement until the 1980s. The main purpose is to design a comprehensive framework that could be used in research. This framework for analyzing causal relationships is presumed to be applicable to other countries. Moreover, it proves that social and political character istics, which are interrelated in Israel, explain participation signifi cantly; physical characteristics explain less. A general local trend in the 1970s and 1980s toward decentralization, which encourages voluntary participation, is also discussed.