Asher Arian is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, a senior research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Haifa. Michal Shamir is Associate Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University. Both edited The Elections in Israel 1992, also published by SUNY Press.

Introduction
Asher Arian and Michal Shamir

Part One
Politics of Identity

1
Elections As a Battleground over Collective Identity
Baruch Kimmerling

2
Collective Identity in the 1996 Election
Michal Shamir and Asher Arian

3
Religion and the Politics of Inclusion: The Success of the Ultra-Orthodox Parties
Gideon Doron and Rebecca Kook

4
The Odd Group Out: The Arab-Palestinian Vote in the 1996 Elections
Ilana Kaufman and Rachel Israeli

5
Determining Factors of the Vote among Immigrants from the Former Soviet Union
Tamar Horowitz

6
"Old" versus "New" Politics in the 1996 Elections
Yael Yishai

Part Two
Political Reform, Parties, Candidates

7
The Electoral Consequences of Political Reform: In Search of the Center of the Israeli Party System
Reuven Y. Hazan

8
The Likud's Double Campaign: Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Jonathan Mendilow

9
Peres the Leader, Peres the Politician
Michal Yaniv

10
The Party Primaries and Their Political Consequences
Gideon Rahat and Neta Sher-Hadar

11
The Bias of Pluralism: The Redistributive Effects of the New Electoral Law
David Nachmias and Itai Sened

12
Balance in Election Coverage
Asher Arian, Gabriel Weimann, and Gadi Wolfsfeld

Index