The attractiveness of the seemingly unattractive: An Israeli case

The aim of this article is to analyse what makes local government in Israel , which enjoys only minimal formal power; so attractive to many political p arties and other organisations. The article offers a typology of the contes tants in the local government electoral nl ena: old parties, pal-ties attem pting to penetrate local government from parliament and parties using local government to enter parliament. The primary goal of every type is then ide ntified: party formation, institutionalisation and survival. From this typo logy an explanatory model is developed which looks at the local government as a 'linkage agent' from which the national parties can mobilise various i mportant resources thus achieving their primary goals.