According to these figures, during the period surveyed the institution that has done the best job of safeguarding democracy in the eyes of the public has been the Supreme Court. This is not surprising, in light of the high degree of confidence that the Supreme Court generally enjoys among the public. In 2003, 70% of respondents expressed their confidence in the institution; in 2004, 79%; in 2005, 72%; and in 2006, 68%. In 2007, despite an appreciable drop, the portion of those expressing confidence in the Supreme Court was 61%, that is, still a majority of the Israeli population.
During the past year, the media - the institution ranked second by the public in terms of safeguarding Israeli democracy - rose strongly in the rankings (from 25% in 2006 to 34% in 2007); however, there has not been a significant change in the degree of confidence inspired by the media in general, which ranged from 51% in 2004 to 44% in 2006.
The prime minister, who has continually been ranked in third place on the question of safeguarding democracy, has enjoyed relative stability in the assessment of the public: during the years in question, the findings ranged from 18% who saw the prime minister as the institution that best preserves Israeli democracy (2003) to 9% who defined him as such (2004). In the period from 2003 through 2006, the prime minister earned a medium rating in terms of public confidence, with a moderate decline over the years (53% expressed confidence in him in 2003, followed by 45% in 2004, 48% in 2005, and 43% in 2006). In 2007, the prime minister received an extremely low confidence rating of only 21%. It can be assumed that this assessment stemmed, at least in part, from the Second Lebanon War, which took place roughly half a year after Ehud Olmert took office, and in general from the lack of stability in the political system.
The institution that ranked lowest in terms of safeguarding Israeli democracy is the Knesset, Israel's parliament. As shown in figure 1, during the past five years, only 13%-14% of the public have considered the Knesset to be the institution that is best safeguarding Israeli democracy. Even more interesting is the level of confidence in Israel's parliament over the past five years. There has been a noticeable decline in the degree of confidence in this institution on the part of the public: from 52% in 2003 to 46% in 2004, 40% in 2005, and 33% in 2006 and 2007. In the past four years, there has been a steep drop in the degree of confidence in the Knesset; at present it has stabilized but at a very low level.
So what do the 2007 figures indicate? Those who define themselves as members of the lower class felt that the media is the institution doing the best job of safeguarding democracy in Israel (47%); by contrast, 23% of this group chose the Supreme Court in this category. It is interesting to note that those who do not keep up with political developments at all via the media see the Supreme Court as doing the best job of safeguarding democracy (42%), while 24% of this group felt that the media is the most successful institution in this area, and 10% each picked the Prime Minister and the Knesset, respectively. Of those who defined themselves as observing Jewish tradition, 30% chose the Supreme Court as the institution that best preserves Israeli democracy, 35% chose the media, 18% opted for the Prime Minister, and 17% for the Knesset. Meanwhile, 41% of the non-observant group ranked the Supreme Court in first place as the institution doing the most to safeguard democracy, while 37% chose the media; 13%, the Prime Minister; and 9%, the Knesset.
Interestingly enough, it is precisely those institutions that are not elected by the public that received the highest rankings as "guardians of democracy," whereas only a small percentage of the public sees the (directly or indirectly) elected institutions as preserving democracy. The professional, non-elected bodies (in this case, the Supreme Court and the media) were created to monitor and assess the elected bodies, whose function it is to decide on policy. From the surveys, it emerges that the public believes that its representatives are safeguarding democracy to a lesser degree than are public servants and members of the media. It is possible that the professionals, whose job it is to oversee the elected bodies, are perceived as more trustworthy, qualified, and honest, and are therefore seen as preserving democracy objectively from without. But both the Knesset and the Prime Minister are elected by the public, and are thus a reflection of that public. In other words, although it is the public that elects its Knesset representatives and the Prime Minister, it tends to lack confidence in them, as opposed to other institutions in which it has no say in choosing the leaders. Simply put, the public has less respect for its own choices, and more for the professionals who are appointed to their positions (sometimes by the elected officials themselves).
Yael Hadar is a Research Assistant at IDI's Guttman Center and is one of the authors of IDI's Israeli Democracy Index (2006-2008). Yael is currently an M.A. student at the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she also works as a Teacher's Assistant.