Heterogeneous Dealignment: Is the Israeli Party System a Cup Half Full?

Electoral dealignment and volatility is often seen as a crisis of political engagement, but it can also pose a more specific threat to the parties themselves, no longer able to rely on a stable, sizeable electoral base. Extant literature on dealignment leaves open the question whether all parties in a given system are equally affected by this phenomenon. If some parties are less susceptible to dealignment than others, these parties could have leverage over the others, being more certain of their future electoral power and having to invest fewer resources in order to secure it. This paper aims to see whether this has been the case in the Israeli party system. It analyzes individual-level data from INES election surveys from 1969 through 2013. Its findings point to a weakening of the voter-party ties within the center-left bloc, but not within the far left or the right bloc.