Israel no longer 'liberal democracy' for first time in 50 years, research institute says

• Published date: 20 March 2024
• Author: ELIAV BREUER
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

V-Dem, short for Varieties of Democracy, is a research institute based in Sweden that measures the levels of democracy worldwide based on a variety of what it defines as high-level principles of democracy. The institute publishes a yearly democracy report that splits the world's countries into four categories: Liberal democracies, electoral democracies, electoral autocracies, and closed autocracies

Electoral democracies, according to V-Dem, include "multiparty elections for the executive are free and fair; satisfactory degrees of suffrage, freedom of expression, freedom of association."

Liberal democracies include the above, as well as "judicial and legislative constraints on the executive along with the protection of civil liberties and equality before the law." Israel was a liberal democracy since the 1970s, but in 2023 became an electoral democracy, the report said.

According to the report, indicators that lowered Israel's rating included a 2023 Knesset bill "stripping the Supreme Court of the power to invalidate laws, thus undermining checks on executive power."

A bill severely limiting the Supreme Court's ability to strike...