Influencing Peace

Abstract

This article explores the link between coalition politics and Israel's policies toward the peace process. Although the field of international relations has increasingly turned to domestic politics to explain international behavior, current treatments of domestic politics focus on state-society relations and often ignore the bargaining and decision-making processes within governments. These processes, I argue, are crucial for explaining states' policies in international negotiations. A complete understanding of Israeli policy in the Arab-Israeli peace process requires attention to coalition politics — the negotiations between the participating political parties in a ruling coalition. Specifically, this study investigates the conditions under which junior partners in Israeli coalition cabinets have been influential in Israeli peace policy. Conditions related to the parties' positions, the public's support and the decision-making process are hypothesized to explain junior partner influence. These hypotheses are examined in four cases — two in which the junior partner was influential and two in which it was not. Variables such as party unity, the prime minister's position, and influence strategy emerge as important in these cases. These specific conclusions are discussed as well as more general lessons from this study on the interaction of domestic and international politics.