Doron Navot

Speed or Greed? High Wages and Corruption Among Public Servants

Scholars maintain that higher wages for public servants would make the public sector more efficient and reduce the abuse of power. This article challenges this idea and suggests that higher wages may actually increase public corruption. We argue that increasing pecuniary incentives for public service might lead public employees to advance their own self-interests and encourage justifications for accepting bribes. We test our theory empirically using 18,800 observations from 58 countries taken from the sixth wave of the World Values Survey. The findings confirm our theory and suggest a positive association between public servants’ wages and the toleration of corruption.

The Concept of Political Corruption

This article revises the concept of political corruption by bringing a fresh perspective to prebehavioral scholarship. It acknowledges prior scholarship but also recognizes its limitations. By refuting the assertion that early twentieth-century conceptions are irrelevant, understanding of political corruption and public integrity can be enhanced.

The 2015 Israeli General Election: The Triumph of Jewish Skepticism, the Emergence of Arab Faith

Abstract: The results of the 2015 Israeli election, primarily the sweeping victory of Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, surprised most analysts. In this article we employ political scientist Michael Oakeshott’s distinction in arguing that the campaign dynamics and the consequent electoral results reflect the triumph of a “politics of skepticism” among Jews, and the emergence of a “politics of faith” among Israel’s Arab-Palestinian citizens. Both derive from a combination of external and domestic circumstances and their effective exploitation by charismatic political leaders.

Real Politics and the Concept of Political Corruption

This article explores some of the challenges generated by recent attempts to relate the concept of political corruption to real politics. It shows that the three distinct arguments upon which scholars who conceptualize political corruption through the lens of real politics often rely are ambiguous, and posit standards for the use of power on the basis of naive or conservative assumptions about politics. The article then contends that we do need to consider real politics in the study of political corruption, but not in the manner or for the reasons suggested in much current scholarship. Specifically, examining real politics can help us determine the form of any given case of political corruption. In making this argument, the article attempts to avoid the problems that accompany most real-politics-based understandings of corruption while retaining concern for how the discourse around political corruption might influence political study and democratic politics.

Likud’s success in the 2015 elections: Netanyahu’s Hobbesian moment

Abstract The current article develops an explanation for Likud’s success, which goes beyond the existing structural and circumstantial accounts. It argues that Likud’s success should be sought for in the utilization of Hobbesian logic by its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. By revealing the commonalities between Hobbes’s political thinking and Rhetoric, and Netanyahu’s political conduct, this paper sheds new light on Netanyahu’s leadership and sources of legitimation and authority in Israel, which are understudied. We demonstrate that Netanyahu’s Hobbesian dimension is best reflected in his understanding of the nature of civil and political rights in the context of an ongoing struggle for survival and self-determination.

The 2013 Israeli General Election: Travails of the Former King

Despite resulting in a different party configuration, the results of the 2013 Israeli general election support a similar agenda to the one set by the previous government. A year following its establishment, all indicators suggest that the current government continues to deepen neoliberal policies. Nevertheless, this election reflects two important trends: first, an ever growing discontent in Israeli public that probably would not find a solution during the tenure of the incoming government; second, lack of interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that might generate negative long-term consequences.