In the fifth episode of “Political Science? No Problem et al.” we talk to Professor Noam Gidron about democratic backsliding in Israel. What ideological motivations lie behind the controversial plans to weaken the Israeli justice system? What attitudes explain public support for these plans and democratic backsliding in general? How can Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and its plans to restructure the justice system be compared with situations in Poland and Hungary?

We also discussed the role of affective polarization in Israeli society and how the ongoing war might influence the attempted erosion of Israel’s democratic institutions in the long term. 

Noam Gidron is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His previous research is especially known for its findings on affective polarization and the link between social status and support for populist parties. 

You can find his website here: https://en.politics.huji.ac.il/people/noam-gidron  and follow him on Twitter here: https://x.com/NoamGidron.  Noams work discussed in the episode can be found here: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/zxukm and here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/900431 . If you’d like to give us feedback, consider rating the podcast wherever you listen to it or send us a message on Twitter (https://twitter.com/V_Burgi & https://twitter.com/Julius_Ktxt)