Change and continuity in the Israeli political economy: Multi-level analysis of the telecommunications and energy sectors

Since the mid-1980s and increasingly during the 1990s Israel, seems to have been experiencing a neo-liberal revolution. The discourse of deregulation, liberalization, and privatization has gradually, but steadily, occupied large areas of the intellectual, media, and political agendas. Two decades after the colossal failure of Simcha Ehrlich’s liberalization program, in November 1977, the Israeli economy and the interaction between the state and the economy, are “finally” being radically transformed. The “revolution that wasn’t” has come into sight. Now, in contrast to the past, the process of liberalization is led by the professional elite in the state bureaucracy and is backed by a relatively wide consensus that includes the major parties in the Knesset, the business community, and the media. The process of liberalization is very gradual and is marked by a series of “little bangs” rather than one “big bang,” yet the accumulation of these small changes in various parts of the Israeli politics, society, and economy adds up to nothing less than a radical change and the creation of a “new Israel”.