The Impact of Public Administrators’ Institutional, Professional, and Private Worldviews on Land Resource Distributions in Israel: A Policy Study

Abstract

This comparative chronological examination of the establishment of new towns in Israel focuses on how local planning and administrative practitioners become a source of original policy initiatives. The research adopts a modality of policy process, emphasizing the advantages of flexible decision-making with regard to the overall governance of land-use. This investigation of spatial policymaking for land distribution is particularly relevant to circumstances of scarce land resources, within geographic environments characterized by high demographic growth and conflict between local identities and cultures. A case study of new towns established is used to analyze the role of professional practitioners, as they regularly confront social and ethnocultural dilemmas when deciding on local land distributions, which carry the capacity for spatial inclusion or discrimination of various communities. The impact of their institutional, professional, and personal value systems on the Israeli sociospatial order may ultimately affect the national land policy outcome.