These essays examine changes in Israel's political, social and economic institutions, and describe how Israeli culture and institutions are resisting convergence. They are in four categories: political institutions and organizations; political economy; ethnicity and religion; and public policy.

David Levi-Faur, Gabriel Sheffer, David Vogel

Chapter 1 Change and Continuity: A Framework for Comparative Analysis, David Levi-Faur, Gabi Sheffer, David Vogel; Chapter 2 Courts as Hegemonic Institutions: The Israeli Supreme Court in a Comparative Perspective, Gad Barzilai; Chapter 3 Israeli Constitutional Politics: The Fragility of Impartiality, Menachem Hofnung; Chapter 4 Structural Change and Leadership Transformation, Gabriel Sheffer; Chapter 5 Interest Politics in a Comparative Perspective: The (Ir)regularity of the Israeli Case, Yael Yishai; Chapter 6 The Social Organization of the Israeli Economy: A Comparative Analysis, Daniel Maman; Chapter 7 Business in Politics: Globalization and the Search for Peace in South Africa and Israel/Palestine, Gershon Shafir; Chapter 8 Have Globalization and Liberalization "Normalized" Israel's Political Economy?, Michael Shalev; Chapter 9 Warfare, Polity-Formation and the Israeli National Policy Patterns, David Levi-Faur; Chapter 10 Consociationalism and Ethnic Democracy: Israeli Arabs in Comparative Perspective, Alan Dowty; Chapter 11 From What Edah are You? Israeli and American Meanings of "Race-Ethnicity" in Social Policy Practices, Dvora Yanow; Chapter 12 Changing Places: Jerusalem's Holy Places in Comparative Perspective, Roger Friedland, Richard D. Hecht; Chapter 13 Imported Problem Definitions, Legal Culture and the Local Dynamics of Israeli Abortion Politics, Noga Morag-Levine; Chapter 14 Israeli Environmental Policy in Comparative Perspective, David Vogel; Chapter 15 The Gender and Pacifism Hypothesis: Opinion Research from Israel and the Arab World, Mark Tessler, Nachtwey Jodi, Audra Grant; Chapter 16 The Promised Land of the Chosen People is not all that Distinctive: On the Value of Comparison, Ira Sharkansky;