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Abstract
This article explores the degree, conditions, and pathways by which instances of institutional change in Israel can be traced back to the EU, either through direct influence mechanisms or indirectly, through emulation. It examines the processes and mechanisms by which EU diffusion into the Israeli domestic system might occur, and identifies the main factors that facilitate and hamper receptivity to EU influence. While there is little evidence that deliberate EU influence mechanisms – manipulation of utility calculations, socialisation, or persuasion – have produced substantial impact, Israelis emerge as highly selective, sophisticated emulators of EU institutions – adapting and implementing EU standards in specific policy realms, typically as the result of two distinct mechanisms of emulation: competition and lesson-drawing. The article demonstrates the possibility of variable pathways of diffusion of EU rules, standards, and norms beyond Europe, and advances existing knowledge of the conditions and pathways of emulation – the least understood mechanism of diffusion.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Tanja Börzel, Thomas Risse, Guy Harpaz, Ambassador Shimon Stein, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Between September 2010 and March 2011, 14 interviews were conducted with senior and mid-level Israeli officials in the Ministry of Finance; Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Justice; Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour; and Ministry of Environmental Protection. I wish to express my deep gratitude to each interviewee.
Notes
1. Interviews with senior Israeli officials in the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (January 2011) and with Commission officials in DG External Relations (2005, 2006). See also Javier Solana in Haaretz (Citation2009).
2. The relationship has not been devoid of punitive measures however. In response to Israeli military action in the West Bank and Gaza during the Second Intifada, the European Parliament voted in 2002 to suspend the EU–Israel EMA. Though formally declaratory, the vote nonetheless constituted a significant symbolic and political act, with EU–Israel relations only recovering after the end of the Second Intifada in 2004.
3. Interviews with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour (March 2011).
4. Interviews with the senior officials responsible for managing the consultation, Ministry of Finance (September 2010).
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Interviews with the senior officials, Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour (March 2011).
8. Interview with chief legal advisor of the Israel Data Protection Agency, Ministry of Justice (March 2011).
9. The criteria are based on Article 121(1) of the ECT.