State Capacity as an Explanation of the Stability of Hybrid Regimes: The Israeli Case

State capacity has been adduced as a key explanation of the stability of democratic and authoritarian regimes alike. This paper proposes that, supporting the varying levels of regime 'democraticness' across diverse dimensions, state capacity may also lie behind the stability of hybrid regimes. This argument is made taking the case of Israel hybrid regime. While Israel scores high in level of 'democraticness' in political contestation it scores more poorly in protection from the state and coverage—the extent to which the entire population participates in the political processes and enjoys protection. Although structural factors such as ethnic diversity and the Israeli-Arab conflict challenge the Israeli regime, state capacity also accounts for its relative stability. State capacity is commonly used to explains democratization, the Israeli case, however, illustrates how democratization also contribute to state capacity by focusing on the ethno-national conflict between Jews and Arabs. Historical overview demonstrates the interplay between state capacity and democratization while taking different dimensions of democracy into account. During state formation period, the relative high capacity of the state was crucial in sustaining 'democraticness' in the dimension of political contestation. At the same time, in order to ensure state capacity, protection from the state and coverage 'democraticness' levels were much limited (c.f. the lack of constitutional bill of rights and military rule over Arab citizens). Improvements in state capacity contribute to Israel relative democratization from the 1970s were challenges to state capacity to control violence explains democratic backsliding in Israel from the 2000s. The dimensions were these changes took place are protection and coverage but not in political contestation.