The Use of Internal Governance in the Renewed Kibbutz as a Tool for Social Maintenance and Development

The kibbutzim were established over a century ago, obtaining their power from communist and socialist ideologies. In spite of enormous changes, all over the world as well as in Israel, particularly the collapse of Communism and the rise of a capitalistic liberal Western lifestyle, the kibbutzim have maintained their basic social structure. Consequently, the question this research examines is what exactly are the social mechanisms that have enabled this continuity over the years. The answer that this article presents focuses on internal governance as a democratic apparatus. Given that the study of internal governance is an accepted method, the authors surveyed internal governance documents that relate to education and that are openly presented to the general public on the renewal kibbutzim sites. The authors fostered a holistic model developed by Rosenthal (1980), in order to indicate the exact roles of internal governance. Their findings establish the concept that internal governance proves to be a good option for community development and preservation. However, there seems to be a lack of awareness of the possibility of using internal governance more widely as a factor that contributes to the development and preservation of the kibbutz.