Ever since 2003, The Guttman Center's Israeli Democracy Index project has been auditing and evaluating democracy in Israel.
The "Israeli Democracy Index" is published yearly and presented to the Israeli President at the
President's Conference. The Index offers an evaluation of the quality of Israeli democracy based on objective parameters and public opinion polls.
Each year the Guttman Center polls some 1200 Israelis in order to identify current trends in Israeli society and to recognize Israelis' attitudes towards implementation of democratic values. The Index also includes an international evaluation, comparing the level of democracy in Israel to 35 other democracies worldwide.
Beyond the importance of evaluating Israeli democracy, the Index makes a major contribution to public discourse by offering the use of all the information and statistics it has amassed over the years.
Together with the regular yearly evaluation, each Index also focuses on an exclusive topic – Youth (2004), The Media (2005), Rabin's Assassination (2005), Political Parties (2006) and Cohesion in a Torn Society (2007). This year the Index will focus on Israeli civil society.