citizen participation: project renewal in israel

CITIZEN PARTlCl PATION: Project Renewal in Israel

FRED A. LAZIN* Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

ABSTRACT: This study on the development of citizen participation in Israel is based on the findings of a case study of Israel’s Project Renewal, a comprehensive community renewal and development program which resembles Urban Renewal, Model Cities, and the War on Poverty programs in the US. The author reviews the characteristics of the Israeli political system which traditionally have denied a meaningful role for citizen participation. He compares the practice with the intent of Project Renewal to foster the participation of neighborhood residents. Finally, he comments on the unique v. the universal character of the Israeli experience with citizen participation: Will Israel follow the US pattern of increased citizen participation in community development programs?

F r o m its establishment in 1948 through most of the 1970s, Israel’s social welfare system resembled “centralized bureaucracies [of many Western democracies] which are funda- mentally undemocratic in the sense that the ordinary citizen has no voice in determining the policies that emanate from them” (Kramer, 1972, p. 15). By the end of the decade, however, Israel’s political and government systems exhibited increased citizen participation and decentralization on the neighborhood level (Sharpe, 1979; Lazin, 1987). Project Renewal, the Begin governments’ (1977-1985) major community development and social welfare program which is similar to Urban Renewal, Model Cities, and the War on Poverty in the US, initiated these changes.

This paper analyzes the influence of Project Renewal on the development of citizen participation in Israel. Rather than evaluate the success of this program, the intent here is to

* Direct all correspondence to: Fred A. Lazin, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, P.O. Box 653, 84105 Beer- Sheva, Israel.

JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS, Volume 18, Number 3, pages 307-321 Copyright 0 1996 by JAI Press Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISSN: 0735-2166.

308 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. 78/No. 3/7996

ask what the Israeli case teaches about politics, public policy, and citizen participation. We review the characteristics of the Israeli political system which traditionally have denied a meaningful role for citizen participation. Then we compare the actual practices with the intent of Project Renewal to foster the participation of neighborhood residents in defining needs, planning, and implementing the program and consider variations between different municipalities. Finally, we discuss the unique v. the universal character of the Israeli experience with citizen participation and question whether Israel will follow the US pattern of increased citizen participation in social welfare and community development programs.

The focus of analysis is on what Ashford (1978, p. 82) refers to as Israel’s “political constitution”: “a set of political institutions without which the state in its present form could not persist” or the characteristic way Israel conducts its business of policy implementation. “The basic hypothesis of policy analysis of politics would be that the state will not under- take those policies which tend to impair or threaten its constitutional foundations.” According to Putnam, Leonardi, and Nanetti (1993, p. 7) “[tlhe rules and standard operat- ing procedures that make up institutions leave their imprint on policy outcomes by structuring political behavior.” Therefore, Israel’s political constitution or the major characteristics of the Israeli political system should strongly influence the implementation of Project Renewal; it is unlikely that the program will introduce significant political change.

The findings should interest students of citizen participation and community development in the United States and in other countries. Despite the uniqueness of Israel and its political system, the findings share much in common with similar projects in other countries (Cannon, 1987; Churchman, 1987; Cole, 1974; Lazin, 1987; Levitan, 1969). They also should contribute to an understanding of the difficulties involved in introducing meaningful citizen participation in countries with paternalistic public policy systems.

METHODOLOGY This paper examines the implementation of the citizen participation components of

Project Renewal. It is not an evaluation of how residents perceived citizen participation. In utilizing a qualitative approach, this paper accepts Berger’s (1992) challenge to deal with the bigger questions and to better understand the relationship between politics, public policy, and citizen participation.

The approach used here is essentially a top down or policy analysis perspective of policy implementation guided by many of the concerns of the bottom up approach. The objective is to provide “a clear factual account of the implementation experience [while recognizing] different points of view [held] by the various participants in the implementation experience” (Yin, 1982, p. 63). This approach facilitates the study of the implementation of a particular policy within an implementation structure involving many different public and private agencies on all levels of the intergovernmental system, including the neighborhood (Barrett & Fudge, 1981; Sabatier, 1986).

Our findings are based on a study of Project Renewal from its inception in 1977 through 1984- 1985 when political changes significantly altered the program (Lazin, 1994). We examine Project Renewal on the national level and in six Israeli municipalities: Ashkelon, Beer-sheva, Beit Shemesh, Herzliya, Ofakim, and Yavneh. While not a representative sample, they provide a wide spectrum of different types of Israeli munici-

I Project Renewal in Israel I 309

TABLE 1

Characteristics of the Cities and Towns in the Study

Net. % Orien. %Car Mon.

City Pop. Jews %BA Owner Inc.’ Location Mayor Twin Ashkelon 52894 65 3.6 35.5 1279 South Independent’ Great Britain

Beer-Sheva 1 10843

Beit-Shemesh 12956

Herzliya 63155

Ofakirn 12646

Yavneh 1391 3

59 8.1

77 2.3

39 13.2

89 1.2

80 2.1

40.8

28.7

63.4

23.8

31.3

coast 1400 South Independent3Frankfurt, FRG

Stockholm Argentina

1368 Jer. Likud Indianapolis

1618 Central Labor Boston Foot hills

Coast N. Likud of Tel- since Aviv 1983

1250 South NRP4 Labor South Africa

1236 Cen.S.of Likud Antwerp since 1983

Tel-Aviv Note: Figures are for 1983 &from Settlements & Statistical Areas (Jerusalem: State of Israel, Central Bureau of Sta-

tistics, 1985). Abbreviations for categories are pop = population; % Orien. Jews = percentage Oriental Jews; % BA & %car own. = percentage of population over 15 with BA degree and/or owning a car, respectively; net. mon. inc. = net monthly family income in Israeli Shekels; twin = oversees Project Renewal twin community.

’ Average national income was 1375 Shekels per family.

In 1978 the mayor was a successful candidate of Yadin’s Party for Democratic Change. He was re-elected in 1983 as the candidate of the newly formed “Moroccan” parly, Tami.

The mayor was an independent affiliated with the Labor Party.

National Religious Party.

palities involved in the program. They represent variation in size, location, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, the format of the program (whether it encompassed part or the entire municipality), the overseas twin, patterns of citizen participation, and the political affiliation of the mayor (Table 1).

The author conducted extensive, open-ended, structured interviews designed to determine the actual roles and influence of neighborhood residents in the program. A survey research approach would not have provided this information (Aberbach, 1981; Narver & Williams, 1982; Yin, 1982; Nathan, 1982). The author adjusted the set of prepared questions to the subject’s position and expertise. Interviewees included national and regional- level political (elected) and administrative personnel in government and Jewish Agency offices, mayors, project directors, citizen activists, heads of municipal agencies, and representatives of overseas Jewish communities. The author supplemented the interviews with a review of official documents, reports, and correspondence in the archives of several ministries and the Jewish Agency. He also reviewed research on Project Renewal by other scholars as well as the Technion’s major evaluation of the program commissioned by the International Committee for the Evaluation of Project Renewal (Samuel Neaman Institute, 1985; International Committee, 1983).

310 I JOURNAL OF URBAN AFFAIRS I Vol. W N o . 311996

THE ISRAELI POLITICAL SYSTEM AND CITIZEN PARTICIPATION Since independence in 1948, Israel has been a democratic political system with open and

free elections, competing political parties, universal suffrage, a viable opposition, and free access for all to run for elected public office. In assuming the task of nation building, however, the new government emphasized the state and national community at the expense of the individual and local communities (Caiden, 1970; Elazar, 1977).

The pre-state Jewish community living in the British Mandate of Palestine exhibited a high degree of volunteerism (Sheffer, 1978). This changed with independence. To ensure its hegemony in the process of absorbing an immigrant population two or three times its size (the population nearly doubled by 1952 and tripled by 1960), the new government in 1948 created social, economic, and political institutions in which nurtured dependence among the average citizen and prevented volunteerism and active citizen participation in public and political spheres outside of elections (Lipset, 1973; Sheffer, 1978). In effect, the government and opposition parties denied the public and individual citizens meaningful input into public policy arenas (Arian, 1985). Lehman-Wilzig (1990) argues that public protest has been part of the Israeli scene since 1948. While his survey research data show social concerns to be more important than political issues, he fails to prove that the protests have significantly influenced the public policy process in Israel.

Absorption policies, for example, fostered paternalism (Ashkenazi, 1985; Weingrod, 1966). A dependent immigrant population became wards of the state (Eisenstadt, 1967; Halper, 1985). Immigrants had little to say about where they would live, their children’s education, and their means of livelihood (Weingrod, 1966). Jewish immigrants from Arab countries (Sepharadim or Oriental Jews) were significantly more dependent than fellow Jewish immigrants from Europe (Ashkenazim). The latter came with more “resources”, obtained financial reparations from Germany, and received better opportunities from the Israeli establishment dominated by Jews of European origin and their descendants. A modified version of Lowi’s (1967) new machines became operational in Israel: Either the ministry or local government authorities and/or their street level bureaucrats made decisions affecting the lives and well being of citizens. Kibbutz settlements representing less than 3% of the population were an exception to this.

The wave of citizen participation which swept the United States during the 1960s did not reach Israel (King, Hacohen, Trisch, & Elazar, 1987). Despite the principle that citizens should be concerned with political affairs, the party, political and bureaucratic systems, remained unresponsive and insensitive to citizen demands. The Ministry of Education, for example, allowed limited parental input into the school curriculum. In practice, few parents, especially Oriental Jews in poorer neighborhoods, took advantage of this (Hoffman, 1986). Similarly, few citizens filed petitions to appeal decisions of municipal planning bodies. Even violent public protest in the Wadi Salib neighborhood of Haifa in 1959 by Jewish Israelis from Arab lands did not call attention to the absence of citizen participation. These rioters, and others including the Israeli Black Panthers of the early 197Os, protested adverse socioeconomic conditions and ethnic discrimination. Demands for citizen participation or neighborhood control, if made, were of secondary importance (Arian, 1985; Churchman, n.d.(a); Cohen, 1980; Gidron & Bargal, 1986; Lehman-Wilzig, 1988, 1990).

The American War on Poverty and Model Cities in the late 1970s eventually influenced several Israeli ministries and others to initiate limited resident involvement in some pro-

I Project Renewal in Israel I 31 1

grams. The community centers movement (Matnasim) provided for neighborhood residents to serve on their boards which were dominated by professionals and ministry officials (Yanay, 1988). Most important, the education ministry’s welfare project, designed to strengthen and improve the educational system in mostly poor Oriental Jewish neighborhoods, encouraged parents to participate in a neighborhood steering committee. In practice, professionals controlled the resources and residents remained in the minority (Shimshoni, 1983). Nevertheless, with the exception of the welfare project, no government agency encouraged widespread resident input. None allowed residents to determine the allocation of resources (King, et al., 1987).

PROJECT RENEWAL During the summer of 1977 the newly elected prime minister Menachem Begin proposed

eradicating conditions of poverty among Israeli Jews. Politics influenced his decision because he received considerable electoral support from lower income Oriental Jewish vot- ers. Begin emphasized housing rehabilitation and slum clearance. He made no mention of citizen participation. He also invited the Jewish Agency, a nongovernmental body established in 1929 to foster the establishment of a Jewish state and representing the Zionist movement and organized Jewish communities throughout the world, to help fund the program (Arian, 1985; Elazar & Dortort, 1985). In 1952 the Israeli government delegated to the Agency responsibility for the care of new immigrants and rural development (King, et al., 1987). Although controlled by the government coalition parties, the Agency can be independent in policymaking. It receives its funds from the United Jewish Appeal (UJA) in the US and the Keren Hayesod elsewhere. The design of the program changed significantly when the Democratic Movement for Change (DMC) joined the coalition government in the fall of 1977. Its leader, Professor Yigal Yadin became Deputy Prime Minister. Despite his formal position, Yadin and his party had little influence in the government. They had joined a coalition which already had a parliamentary majority.

The Democratic Movement for Change favored a comprehensive social and physical (infrastructure and housing) renewal effort. The Jewish Agency supported this position while its overseas fundraising constituents, especially the American United Jewish Appeal (UJA), opposed a renewal effort which did not actively involve neighborhood residents. In 1977 a special committee of the UJA made the social component (not specifying citizen participation) a precondition for UJA involvement. A proposed resolution at the June 1978 Agency Assembly made “neighborhood [participation]. . .a prerequisite for Jewish Agency involvement in Project Renewal.” Retrospectively, most key actors at the time believed that the “Americans” (active United Jewish Appeal lay persons) contributed the citizen participation component.

Finally, some neighborhood groups and individuals pressured for citizen participation. At the start of Project Renewal, neighborhood residents demonstrated demanding that citizens be consulted. In the summer of 1980 neighborhood activists established a national organization, “Israel is Me”, which called for resident control of Project Renewal (Ha’aretz, 31 August 1980, Hebrew). It claimed branches in 166 neighborhoods and held a conference in Beer-Sheva in November 1980. Shortly thereafter, it disappeared from the public arena.


Deputy Prime Minister Yadin headed a ministerial committee to set overall policy for the program. His Social Policy Group (SPG), a small body of social scientists led by Prof. Shimshoni, staffed the coordinating committee for Project Renewal which set operational policies, issued guidelines, and coordinated, monitored, and guided implementation (Ben Elia, 1982). Shimshoni and an Agency representative cochaired the coordinating committee. Participating on the ministerial and coordinating committees were representatives of the ministries of housing, education, health, labor and social affairs, interior and finance, and the Jewish Agency. The Union of Local Government Authorities (ULGA), an organization representing Israeli mayors, sent nonvoting representatives to the coordinating committee from 1981 - 1983. Significantly absent throughout were representatives of neighborhood residents.

The Social Policy Group developed the content of Project Renewal between 1978 and January 1979 when the government approved the program. It called for renewal “with and by rather than for the residents. Residents should be involved in planning and implementation” (International Committee, 1984, p. 31; Hoffman, 1986; Shimshoni, 1983). Their Project Renewal concept wanted ”[sltrategies, plans, and priorities.. . [to be] initiated by the neighborhoods, rather than by the national government” (Shimshoni, 1982, p. 463, 1983; Hoffman, 1986).

In calling for the active involvement of neighborhood residents, the Social Policy Group hoped to reduce apathy and alienation caused by the disadvantaged population’s dependence on authorities (King, et al., 1987; International Committee, 1985; Alexander, 1988). It also wanted citizen participation to check the mayors and municipal service delivery systems whom it viewed as being partially responsible for slum conditions and neighborhood neglect which necessitated Project Renewal (Hoffman, 1986; Levitan, 1969). As with Model Cities, Project Renewal also gave the mayor and municipal service providers important roles in the program (Shelah, 1984; Kramer, 1972). In effect, Project Renewal called for planning from below with the participation of neighborhood residents, the mayor, and service providers in a process of joint deliberations.

Formally, the program was to operate as follows. The Coordinating Committee was to issue guidelines and regulations and set an annual budget for each neighborhood which dis- tinguishes between Jewish Agency and government monies without division between specific ministries. A Local (neighborhood) Steering Committee, in turn, was to submit an annual plan for projects and programs to the Coordinating Committee for approval. There- after, each ministry and the Jewish Agency were to receive renewal funds for approved projects and programs. Implementation was to be by the ministries, the local municipalities, the Jewish Agency, or some other body.

While resident involvement took many forms including self-help home improvement programs, employment, apartment house committees, and participatory roles in education, health, and community work programs (King, et al., 1987; International Committee, 1984; Hoffman, 19861, the Local Steering Committee (LSC) served as the major mechanism for citizen participation. Residents constituted a near majority of the members. The mayor, however, chaired the committee. Jewish Agency officials and municipal and ministry professionals also participated. Finally, each neighborhood was matched with an overseas Jewish community which raises funds and becomes involved in the renewal efforts in its


adopted neighborhood. Prior to Project Renewal, overseas Jewish communities contributed money to a general philanthropic fund for Israel.

FINDINGS

In April 1979 only 19 of the then 30 renewal neighborhoods had operational Local Steer- ing Committees and only ten had neighborhood representatives. In all six communities studied here, neighborhood residents participated in the Local Steering Committees, The general degree, extent, and influence of participation, however, varied extensively from insignificant in Ofakim, minimal in Yavneh, moderate in Herzliya, Ashkelon and Beit Shemesh, to significant in Beer-Sheva. Patterns also varied: Few, if any, residents participated in Ofakim. In Ashkelon, parts of Herzliya, and Beit Shemesh numerous and diverse elements of the neighborhood participated. In Beer-Sheva and one Herzliya area a single individual and or a family dominated much like traditional US ward bosses (Stone, Whelan, & Murin, 1986).

In general, mayors and municipal and ministry professionals dominated or manipulated the residents on the Local Steering Committee. While the exceptions were interesting, they were few and fleeting. Residents and their leaders in one Herzliya neighborhood, both Beer-Sheva programs, and in Beit Shemesh exerted meaningful influence on the program during limited periods of time. The extent of their influence often involved a threat of neighborhood opposition to a proposed project or program.

Increased participation in itself should not suggest democratization of the planning process (Cnaan, 1991). The findings here confirm that Project Renewal gave impetus “to the involvement and influence of an enlarged group of ‘activists’ rather than to broad grass roots participation” (International Committee, 1984, p. iii). According to the Technion study, relatively few neighborhood residents participated: “[Tlhe decisive majority of residents did not respond to attempts of the active residents or the community workers to involve them” (Churchman, n.d.(b), p. 143). Moreover, even fewer and in most cases none of the very poor or unemployed participated in Project Renewal (Churchman, n.d.(a)).

Initial Coordinating Committee regulations in 198 1 called for democratic and open elections at least once every two years or the mayor could appoint residents for six months with an option to renew or to hold elections. Later regulations allow for an Open Residents Forum at which active residents choose representatives for the Local Steering Committee. By 1982 the Social Policy Group preferred elections to a neighborhood council rather than to the Local Steering Committee with the former then selecting persons for the Steering Committee. In the case studies here, most residents on the Local Steering Committees were not elected. Through 1984, only one general election (in Beit Shemesh) was held. The cir- cumstances of the election are of interest.

Two community workers, one from the community center and the other from the municipal welfare department, organized general elections for community representatives for the Local Steering Committee in 1985. The mayor initially supported the idea. When he changed his mind, it was too late to stop the process. An election committee appointed by the mayor, community workers, and the Coordinating Committee divided the town into nine districts, excluding the wealthiest neighborhood. Seven of the nine neighborhoods elected councils of 3-7 members with an overall voter turnout of 20-25%, ranging from a


low of 11 to a high of 40% in the individual neighborhoods. One neighborhood had no can- didates and a second became exempt because it had recently chosen a council in a large community meeting. Each council, in turn, chose from one to two representatives for the Local Steering Committee. This resulted in an almost total turnover of neighborhood representatives. The reconstituted Steering Committee decided to have residents head its subcommittees and forced the mayor to change the government’s social renewal budget allocations. Their support for a local Jewish Agency renewal director, however, did not prevent his removal by the mayor.

Generally, the mayor and/or municipal community workers appointed persons to the Local Steering Committee or residents chose themselves. The International Committee (1984) estimated that only 17% had been elected. Without distinguishing between selec- tion by a general meeting or a general election, Hoffman (1986) reports that the vast majority were elected and King and associates (1987) refer to 40% (as of 1986). Those chosen first, usually remained, effectively preventing participation by others. Despite their calls for broader resident representation, Coordinating Committee, ministries, and the Jew- ish Agency, generally supported resident leaders with whom they could work, regardless of whether elected. Clearly, part of the problem of the lack of widespread participation lay with the residents. This should not be surprising considering Olson’s (1 97 1, p. 2) thesis that “rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve their common or group interests’’ unless either coerced or separate incentives are provided. Both conditions were absent. Most residents lacked self-confidence and were unorganized. They were unable to stand up to the municipality, the government, and other authorities. Shelah (1984) found that many citizen representatives felt inadequate due to lack of formal education and knowledge. Questions about whether they really represented the neighborhood, problems of burnout, high turnover, and a lack of information also limited their ability to function (International Committee, 1984, 1985; Churchman, n.d.(b.)).

In contrast, some have portrayed residents as a powerful political force in Project Renewal (Neaman, 1984). They give partial credit to the leadership development courses of the Jewish Agency and Ministry of Social Affairs and efforts by community workers to enhance the ability and prestige of neighborhood residents on the Local Steering Commit- tees (International Evaluation, 1985; King, et al., 1987).

Nevertheless, many individual residents took advantage of opportunities to participate. The limits of their participation is significant and should be explained.

Due to the central and dominant role of the mayors in Project Renewal on the municipal level, mayoral attitudes, as well as policies, significantly affected the participation and influence of residents in their respective municipalities (Shimshoni, 1983). Initially suspi- cious of the intent of the citizen participation component, like their US counterparts during the War on Poverty, Israeli mayors realized very quickly that they had little to fear from it (Peterson & Greenstone, 1968). Most used their control of appointments to the steering committee and resources from renewal and other programs to influence and manage residents. The indifference of the mayor of Beer-Sheva toward the program explains the influence of residents and their dominance in at least one if not both of Beer-Sheva’s neighborhoods. All of the mayors in the six municipalities opposed Local Steering Committee elections and with one exception prevented their taking place. Finally, the Ministry of Inte- rior lobbied to restrict elections to the Local Steering Committee, arguing that elections

I frojecf Renewal in Israel I 31 5

would undermine the authority of existing city councils (personal communication, Gabai to Kuberski, December 18,1980).

While political interaction between mayors on the one hand and the residents on the other account for much of the variations in citizen participation in a particular community, other factors also influenced the roles and influence of each. First, the more senior and experienced the municipal professionals, the more influence they had on the mayor, the ministries, and the program and the less the resident initiative and participation. Exceptions involved municipal community workers in Beer-Sheva, Herzliya, and Beit Shemesh who consistently favored greater citizen participation. In Herzliya and Beer-Sheva their call for expanded citizen participation brought them into conflict with existing resident leaders.

Second, the overseas Jewish communities that contributed Project Renewal funds provided the greatest potential for fostering citizen participation in their specific matched Israeli community. The US communities, in particular, buffered opposition to citizen participation by ministries, professionals, and mayors (Elazar & King, 1982).

The involvement of overseas communities in general and their concern for citizen participation in particular varied significantly. Great Britain (Ashkelon) and Boston (Herzliya) were most active and concerned. Indianapolis (Beit Shemesh) and South Africa (Ofakim) were active and concerned. Argentina (Beer-Sheva) was less active and concerned and Antwerp (Yavneh) and Federal Republic of Germany (Beer-Sheva) were least active and least concerned.

Several other factors, however, tempered the commitment of the overseas communities to citizen participation. By 1982 many placed higher priority on economic development. Regardless, from the start, many devoted their efforts equally to strengthening the mayor vis B vis the ministries, believing that a weak mayor would jeopardize the entire renewal effort. They acted in the same manner as leaders in the more civic regions of Italy whose increased concerns with effectiveness limited their earlier commitments to direct democracy (Putnam, et al., 1993). The Jewish Agency, in turn, tried to prevent, limit, and control direct ties of the overseas communities with residents (and the mayors). The hiring of their own Israeli representatives by several overseas communities, however, decreased their formal dependence on the Agency and increased direct contact with residents. Finally, the ministries restricted the overseas community involvement almost exclusively to programs which they funded. The overseas communities had little, if any, influence on the other renewal activities.

Third, the shortcomings of the Local Steering Committee limited the potential influence of residents. While the program intended that the Local Steering Committee, with a near majority of neighborhood residents, would determine needs, design plans, decide on programs, and supervise implementation, practice proved otherwise. The mayors cleared the agenda beforehand with the Jewish Agency and ministries and controlled most steering committee meetings where decisions were reached by consensus without voting. Munici- pal and ministry professionals dominated the subcommittees. In contrast to findings here, the Technion study reported that in 1983 residents headed the subcommittees in five of the ten sites (Samuel Neaman Institute, 1985). Some communities established smaller execu- tive committees with fewer resident representatives. Finally, budget commitments extending over several years limited later Local Steering Committee program initiatives and changes (International Committee, 1984).


An exceptional case involved one Beer-Sheva neighborhood where, from 1979- 1983, the Local Steering Committee, controlled and led by a neighborhood resident leader, limited the city’s involvement, initiated some programs, and coordinated activities with the ministries and Agency. The leader continued to control the local steering committee when he became its social director and later the Agency’s director for renewal in the city. Until his election as Deputy Mayor in 1983, community activists believed that he continued to serve the community’s interests.

Fourth, the Social Policy Group preferred a process to a specific policy. It neither formu- lated detailed policies nor issued clear guidelines. It consistently favored a rolling or heuristic model and rejected a blueprint approach in planning. For example, it issued formal regulations for citizen participation later and allowed several alternatives without meaningful sanctions. Also, changeovers in coordinating committee officials and staff reduced its commitment to citizen participation (Shimshoni 1983).

Finally, on the national level, the coordinating committee’s ability to ensure implementation of citizen participation in renewal was questionable. It lacked authority, power, and prestige and had little support in the major ministries and local governments for the citizen participation provision. By 198 1, coalition politics enabled ministries to receive directly their government Project Renewal monies, thus bypassing Yadin’s coordinating committee renewal process. The Jewish Agency followed suit. It refused to transfer its overseas renewal funds to Yadin’s authority. Control of funding allowed the ministries and Agency to follow their own policies toward resident involvement in the program.

The regional offices of the housing ministry, for example, determined the ministry’s renewal plans, programs, and allocation of resources for neighborhoods. The housing ministry made cosmetic adjustments to renewal plans to meet objections of mayors and residents. It also set up housing and block committees which it circumvented when in need of quick results (Hoffman, 1986).

According to Peterson, Rabe, and Wong (1986, p. 103) in development programs “[P]rovisions requiring citizen participation which could have been a destabilizing factor in local policies were neither seriously followed by local officials nor enforced by state and federal administrators.”

Over the years all ministries, without exception, became more forceful toward the Local Steering Committee. They imposed the will of the ministry on residents, insisting that their traditional programs be funded and administered in accordance with ministry criteria. Iron- ically, this occurred as residents on the Local Steering Committee gained experience and became more involved.

While Shimshoni (1983) claims that the Ministry of Social Affairs favored residents, its secondary role limited its influence. Moreover, activist residents opposed demands by the ministry’s community work division to expand resident involvement.

Finally the Agency, which officially favored citizen participation and had the potential to significantly affect the role of residents in programs it funded, acted like most ministries. While its renewal department directors and regional staff made sure that residents sat on the boards of local Jewish Agency renewal companies (Hoffman, 1986), Agency officials retained veto power and final say over their renewal funds and programs. Moreover, it fought few, if any, battles to expand citizen participation. It accepted existing citizen representatives.


CONCLUSIONS The evidence supports King and associates’ (1987, p. 96) conclusion that “( 1) limited but

meaningful resident participation in a comprehensive institutional setting was one of Project Renewal’s major achievements.” For the first time, the Israeli government made resident involvement an integral part of a major government program. It required ministry representatives to consult with neighborhood residents on the Local Steering Committees about ministry programs for the neighborhood. Nevertheless, the findings also give cre- dence to the applicability of a statement describing citizen participation in similar programs in Western Europe: “planning procedures-which include extensive formalized participation-may be nothing more than a means of strengthening the hand of those who traditionally make policy: political authorities.. .and bureaucrats” (Susskind & Elliott, 1984, p. 177).

In the tradition of the US War on Poverty and Model Cities, the sponsors of Project Renewal called for widespread citizen participation. At best, citizen participation in Project Renewal slightly improved existing patterns of paternalism between all levels of the government and neighborhood residents (Susskind & Elliott, 1984).

Susskind and Elliott (1984, p. 159; Arnstein, 1969) present three categories of citizen participation: Paternalism, the

pattern of participation in.. .municipal decision making [which] is highly centralized and advice given by citizens is either discouraged or closely managed by local government officials. Conflict is that pattern of participation in which centralized decision making is dominant but in which resident.. .groups struggle openly to wrest control over certain resource-allocation or policy decisions from elected or appointed officials.. . Coproduction is a[n]. . .infrequently found.. .pattern of participation in which decisions are made through face-to-face negotiations between decision makers and residents claiming a major stake in particular decisions.

Paternalism characterized citizen participation in our case studies and in the findings of most other Project Renewal research.

[Mlunicipal decision making.. .remains highly centralized and.. .advice from citizens is either restricted or closely prescribed.. .through rules indicating when and how citizens can participate.. .Public officials agree that some direct involvement of residents.. .is necessary to legitimize decisions that must be made, but these same officials are quick to point out that only they.. .are actually empowered to decide (Susskind & Elliott, 1984, p. 160).

Cases of conflict proved to be the exception. Coproduction with residents was absent, with the possible exception of a single neighborhood in Beer-Sheva during a limited time. Iron- ically, many mayors achieved a degree of coproduction in Project Renewal with national institutions. This may confirm a finding by Rosenthal (1984) that the mayors learn to manipulate rather than fight the system. The findings support Ashford’s (1978) contention that governments will neither enact nor implement policies contrary to the interests of their political constitutions. Israel’s dominant political institutions (party-dominated coalition governments and ministries and an autonomous and independent Jewish Agency) strongly


influenced the implementation of citizen participation provisions in the program. As Put- nam and associates (1993) found in Italy, here, too, institutions shaped actions, identities, power, and strategies.

Deputy Prime Minister Yadin’s initial call for meaningful citizen participation in the planning and implementation process clashed with party controlled ministry and Jewish Agency interests. The latter prevailed. Yadin lacked sufficient political resources (as well as commitment) to alter the existing public policy system dominated from above by ministries and the Jewish Agency. Consequently, the implementation process resulted in the several ministries and the Agency determining the role of residents in their respective independent renewal programs which Yadin failed to coordinate. Clearly, in every case study citizen participation varied with respect to the different renewal programs of the several ministries and the Jewish Agency. This confirms the value of Cole’s (1974) concept of scope which views citizen participation from the perspective of each institutional actor involved in the overall program. For citizens and their representative bodies, Project Renewal offered several different arenas of participation. Nevertheless, most were paternalistic, while some offered a limited and more modified version of a minimum coproduction model.

This should not be surprising because, with the possible exception of ineffective efforts of community workers in some neighborhoods, no major institutional member of the Israeli government or Agency pressured to ensure meaningful citizen participation beyond paternalism. All gave it lip service. While calling for greater citizen involvement and democratic elections for neighborhood representatives, the ministries, professionals, and Jewish Agency either made decisions alone, thus ignoring residents, or cooperated with and legitimized existing resident activists, the overwhelming majority of whom had never been elected.

Like Urban Renewal, OEO, and Model Cities in the United States, Project Renewal in Israel fostered from above citizen participation on the neighborhood level. Gittell’s (1983) distinction between mandated and grassroots organizations is important for the Israeli case and accounts for some of the differences between programs and results in both countries. Whereas in the United States earlier programs fostered grassroots organizations which existed when subsequent programs appeared, in most Israeli neighborhoods Project Renewal fostered the first widespread comprehensive role for neighborhood groups in a major national government program. Of interest was Churchman’s (n.d.(a)) finding that the newer neighborhood councils and organization proved to be more open, responsive, and democratic than organizations which existed prior to renewal. The mandated citizen organizations established by Project Renewal remained dependent, relatively weak, and subject to cooptation, control, and manipulation by the mandators (Gittell, 1983). Optimistically in terms of the residents’ perspective, if resident activists and organizations persist and the government introduces newer community development programs, then resident input may become more significant.

While the previous conclusion might suggest that Israel might be following the pattern of the United States with a time lag explaining certain dissimilarities, there may be other significant differences. In contrast to positions in some recent articles (Cannon, 1987; Churchman, 1987), it may be that the uniqueness of the Israeli case may be more significant than what is shared with other countries.


Rosenthal (1984) talks about a shared ethos of neighborhood participation and respon- siveness shared by US planners, bureaucrats, and politicians in the 1970s and 1980s, which affects how they respond to citizen demands. Evidence suggests that such an ethos was absent in the Israel of the 1980s. While one could suggest that it may take another generation or two to sensitize public officials, other evidence suggests a very different ethos. During the Project Renewal period, several of the key political leaders on local and national levels, whose origins lie with the once disenfranchised Oriental Jewish communities of Israel and who came up through the system to become mayors or ministers, rejected the legitimacy of citizen participation. They preferred to make decisions unilaterally and exhibited a lack of sensitivity toward those left behind in the neighborhoods. They rejected the legitimacy of residents’ demands to determine their own needs and interests.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: The Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, with funding from the Charles H. Revson Foundation of New York, supported this research.

REFERENCES Aberbach, J. D., Putnam, R. D., & Rockman, B. A. (1981). Bureaucrats andpoliticians in Western

democracies. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Alexander, E. R. (1988). Urban renewal in Israel 1965-1985: lessons in planning, coordination and

implementation. Working Paper. Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin, Center for Architecture and Urban Planning Research.

Arian, A. (1985). Politics in Israel: the second generation. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House Publishers.

Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35, 2 16-224.

Ashford, D. (1978). The structural analysis of policy or institutions really do matter. In D. Ashford (Ed.), Comparing public policies: new concepts and methods, pp. 81-98. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Ashkenazi, M. (1985). Studying the students: information exchange, Ethiopian immigrants, social workers, and visitors. Israel Social Science Research, 3( 1-2), 85-96.

Barrett, S., &Fudge, C. (1981). Reconstructing the field of analysis. In S. Barrett & C. Fudge (Eds.), Policy and action: essays on the implementation of public policy, pp. 247-278. London: Methuen.

Ben Elia, N. (1982). A chronology of key events in Project Renewal (June 1977-January 1982). (Mimeographed). Tel Aviv: International Evaluation Committee for Project Renewal.

Berger, P. (1992). Sociology: a disinvitation? Society, 30(4), 12-18. Caiden, G. (1970). Israel’s administrative culture. Berkeley: University of California, Institute of

Carmon, N. (1987). Who needs neighborhood policy? Policy Studies Journal, 16, 263-268. Churchman, A. (1987). Issues in resident participation: lessons from the Israeli experience. Policy

Churchman, A. (n.d., a). Can resident participation in neighborhood rehabilitation programs

Churchman, A. (n.d., b). English version of portion of volume I1 of Neaman Institute’s

Cnaan, R. (1991). Neighborhood-representing organizations: how democratic are they? Social

Governmental Studies.

Studies Journal, 16, 290-299.

succeed: Israel’s Project Renewal through a comparative perspective. Haifa, Israel.

comprehensive evaluation of Israel’s Project Renewal. Haifa, Israel.

Service Review, 65, 614-634.


Cohen, E. (1980). The Black Panthers and Israeli society. In E. Krausz (Ed.), Studies of Israeli society: migration, ethnicity and community, pp. 147- 163. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

Cole, R. (1974). Citizen participation and the urban policy process. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Eisenstadt, S. N. (1967). Israeli society. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson. Elazar, D. (1977). The compound structure of public service systems in Israel. In V. Ostrom & F. P.

Bish (Eds.), Comparing urban service delivery systems: structure and pegormance, pp. 47- 82. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Elazar, D., with King P. (1982). The extent, focus and impact of diaspora involvement in Project Renewal; an interim report. (Mimeogrqhdf. Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute for Federal Studies.

Elazar, D. J., & Dortort, A. M. (Eds.). (1985). Understanding the Jewish Agency: a handbook (rev. ed.). Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Gidron, B., & Bargal, D. (1986). Self-help awareness in Israel: an expression of structural changes and expanding citizen participation. Journal of Voluntary Action Research, 15(2), 47-56.

Gittell, M. (1 983). The consequences of mandating participation. Policy Studies Review, 3, 90-95. Halper, J. (1985). The absorption of Ethiopian immigrants: a return to the fifties. Israel Social

Science Research, 3, 112-139. Hoffman, C., & the Renewal Department of the Jewish Agency for Israel. (1986). Project Renewal:

community and change in Israel. Jerusalem: Halberstadt Communication. International Committee for the Evaluation of Project Renewal (IC). (1983). Annual report for 1982.

(Mimeographed). Jerusalem: Government of IsraeUJewish Agency. International Committee for the Evaluation of Project Renewal (IC). (1984). Annual report for 1983.

(Mimeographed). Jerusalem: Government of IsraeUJewish Agency. International Committee for the Evaluation of Project Renewal (IC). (1985). Summary of findings

and recommendations. (Mimeographed). Submitted to Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Housing and Chairman of the Jewish Agency. Jerusalem: Government of IsraeUJewish Agency.

King, P., Hacohen, O., Frisch, H., & Elazar, D. J. (1987). Project Renewal in Israel: urban revitalization through partnership. Lanham, MD: University Press of America and Jerusalem Center for Public AffaidCenter for Jewish Community Studies.

Kramer, D. C. (1972). Participatory democracy: developing ideas of the political left. Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing.

Lazin, F. (1987). Policy implementation of social welfare in the 1980s. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

Lazin, F. (1994). Politics and policy implementation: Project Renewal in Israel. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Lazin, F. (1995). The study of policy implementation: lessons from Israel’s Project Renewal. Governance, 8, 261-280.

Lehman-Wilzig, S. (1988). Turning point: at 40, Israel rethinks the welfare state. Present Tense,

Lehman-Wilzig, S. (1 990). Stiff-necked people, bottle-necked system: the evolution and roots of

Levitan, S. (1969). The great society’s poor law. Baltimore: John Hopkins Press. Lipset, S. M. (1973). The Israeli dilemma. In M. Curtis & M. Chertoff (Eds.), Israel: social

Lowi, T. (1967). Machine politics.. .old and new. Public Interest, 9, 83-92.

(March-April), 15-19.

Israeli public protest, 1949-1986. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

structure and change, pp. 349-360. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

I Project Renewal in Israel I 321

Narver, B. J., & Williams, W. (1982). The consultanthesearcher role: implications for studying public management problems. In W. Williams, R. Elmore, J. Hall, R. Jung, M. Kirst, S. MacManus, B. Narver, R. Nathan, & R. Yin, Studying implementation: methodological and administrative issues, pp. 149- 170. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.

Nathan, R. P. (1982). The methodology for field work network evaluation. In W. Williams, R. Elmore, J. Hall, R. Jung, M. Kirst, S. MacManus, B. Narver, R. Nathan, & R. Yin, Studying implementation: methodological and administrative issues, pp. 73-93. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.

Samuel Neaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology. (1985). Comprehensive evaluation of Israel’s Project Renewal (4 vols). Haifa: Samuel Neaman Institute. (Hebrew with some portions in English). (Technion Report).

Olson, M. (197 1). The logic of collective action: public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Peterson, P., & Greenstone, D. (1968). Machines and the war on poverty. In J. Q. Wilson (Ed.), City politics andpublic policy, pp. 267-292. New York: Wiley.

Peterson, P., Rabe, B., & Wong, K. (1986). When federalism works. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution.

Putnam, R. D., with R. Leonardi & R. Y. Nanetti. (1993). Making democracy work: civic traditions in modem Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Rosenthal, D. B. (1984). Forms of local participation in a neighborhood-based federal program. Policy Studies Review, 3, 279-295.

Sabatier, P. (1986). Top-down and bottom-up approaches to implementation research: a critical analysis and suggested syntheses. Journal of Public Policy, 6, 21-48.

Sharpe, L. J. (1979). Decentralizing trends in Western democracies. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.

Sheffer, G. (1978). Elite cartel, vertical domination, and grassroots discontent in Israel. In S. Tarrow, P. Katzenstein, & L. Graziano, Territorial politics in industrial nations. pp. 64-96. New York: Praeger.

Shelah, I. (1984). Three aspects of local steering committees in project renewal: composition, involvement and decision making. (Mimeographed). Jerusalem: Hebrew University, Labor and Welfare Research Institute. (Mimeograph).

Shimshoni, D. (1982). Israeli democracy: the middle of the journey. New York: Free Press. Shimshoni, D. (1983). The management of renewal 1977-1982. Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University,

Institute of Social Research. Stone, C. N., Whelan, R. K., & Murin, W. J. (1986). Urban policy andpolitics in a bureaucratic age

(2d ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Susskind, L., & Elliott, M. (1984). Paternalism, conflict and coproduction: learning from citizen

action and citizen participation in Western Europe. In D. Soen, F. Lazin, & Y. Neumann (Eds.), Cities, communities and planning in the 1980’s. pp. 155-201. Hampshire, England: Gower.

Weingrod, A. ( 1966). Reluctant pioneers: village development in Israel. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Yanay, U. (1988). Ideology and reality: representation and participation in local service management evaluation, the case of the Israeli community service center, MATNAS. British Journal of Social Work, 18,43-56.

Yin, R. (1982). Studying the implementation of public programs. In W. Williams, R. Elmore, J. Hall, R. Jung, M. Kirst, S. MacManus, B. Narver, R. Nathan, & R. Yin, Studying implementation: methodological and administrative issues, pp. 36-72. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.

citizen participation: project renewal in israel

Documents