The Modernization of Israeli Administration

Abstract

Israeli political, economic, and social achievements have apparently made Israel a developed nation. Social scientists customarily ignore its geographic setting in the developing world and study the country as a phenomenon of political, social and economic development. One aspect, however, is still problematic and controversial. This is the administrative. Israelis doubt the extent to which their governmental administration is developed, by which they mean the extent to which their administration is staffed by trained officials appointed on grounds of merit. While the forms of a modern government service exist, Israelis are skeptical of their substance, because of what they suspect to be widespread instances of inattention to the rules for appointment and promotion to civil service positions. Social scientists seem to have accepted the conventional wisdom of Israeli public opinion and they, too, have judged the Israeli civil service to be embryonic or stunted in development, largely because of political interference in appointments and advancement to senior positions. It is true that in every country the issue of which governmental offices should be political and which administrative is a problem. But this problem is exacerbated in Israel where, because of party politics, it is, ostensibly, one resolution which exists in law and another in fact.