Israel’s Bureaucratic Elite: Social Structure and Patronage
Author(s)
Nachmias, David
Abstract
A study of top-level administrators in the government of Israel is presented. The data were derived from personal in-depth interviews, a structured survey, government publications, and daily newspapers. The Israeli bureaucratic elite do not form an exception to the general pattern of elite recruitment. Bureaucratic elites are disproportionately recruited from the more advantaged strata of society because the resources of privilege tend to converge. The bureaucratic elite is unrepresentative of the social structure. The class bias of the elite contrasts sharply with the ideological visions of the nation-building elite and core values of the political culture. The major reason for this disparity is the mixture of partisan-political priorities with educational credentialism in the recruitment process. The politicization-secularization cycles militate against the institutionalization of a highly meritorious, higher civil service committed primarily to national agendas, relative continuity, and coherent evolution of public policies.
