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This book explores the existence of gaps between public preferences and institutional designs in democracies, and specifically cases in which such gaps are maintained for a long period of time without being challenged by the electorate. Gaps such as these can be seen in the complex relations between the state and religion in Israel and Turkey, and more specifically in their policies on marriage. This line of investigation is interesting both theoretically and empirically, as despite their poles apart policies, Israel and Turkey share a similar pattern of institutional dynamics. Existing explanations for this phenomenon suggested either civil society-based arguments or intra-institutional dynamics, as reasons for the maintenance of such gaps. This book enriches our understanding of policy dynamics in democratic systems by introducing a third line of argument, one that emphasizes the effective role state institutions play in maintaining such arrangements for long periods, often against the public will.
List of contents
1. Enduring Gaps between Public Preferences and Institutional Designs.- 2. Conceptualizing Enduring Gaps between Public Preferences and Institutional Designs.- 3. Researching Enduring Gaps in Comparative Research: The Data, the Methods, and the Cases.- 4. The Israeli Case: Israel's Formation of Religious State Institutions.- 5. The Israeli Case: The Lack of Societal Pressure to Modify the Religious Marriage Policy.- 6. The Israeli Case: The Use of Institutional Pressure Relief Valves.- 7. The Turkish Case-Turkey's Formation of Secular State Institutions.- 8. The Turkish Case: The Lack of Societal Pressure to Modify Secular Marriage Policy.- 9. The Turkish Case-The Use of Institutional Pressure Relief Valves.- 10. Conclusion.
About the author
Niva Golan-Nadir is a Research Associate at the Center for Policy Research at the University of Albany, SUNY, USA, and a teaching faculty member at Reichman University (IDC Herzliya), and the Open University of Israel, Israel. She received her PhD from the School of Political Science at the University of Haifa, Israel, where she further completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the division of Public Administration and Policy. Her recent studies have been published in peer-reviewed journals such as The American Review of Public Administration and The International Review of Administrative Sciences.
