Public Preferences and Institutional Designs / Progress in Mathematics (PDF)

'A fascinating comparison of two countries that maintain marriage policies only a minority of the population prefers... Golan-Nadir offers a provocative account with implications for how policies are designed and maintained in democracies.'

-Margaret Levi, Professor of Political Science, Stanford University

'Social scientists interested in institutional development, the interplay between law and politics, and public administration will benefit from reading this original work.'

-John V.C. Nye, Professor of Economics and Bastiat Chair in Political Economy, George Mason University

'In her analysis of marriage regulation in Turkey and Israel, Niva Golan-Nadir goes beyond existing accounts of state responsiveness gaps and charts new territory by revealing the institutional politics of why states do not meet their citizens' needs. Public Preferences and Institutional Designs is a must read for everyone interested in the complex relationship between state and religion.'

-Fritz Sager, Professor of Political Science, University of Bern

This book explores the existence of gaps between public preferences and institutional designs in democracies, specifically in cases in which such gaps are maintained for a long period of time without being challenged by the electorate. Gaps such as these can be seen in the complex relations between the state and religion in Israel and Turkey, and more specifically in their policies on marriage. This line of investigation is interesting both theoretically and empirically, as despite their differing policies both Israel and Turkey share a similar pattern of institutional dynamics. Existing explanations for this phenomenon suggest either civil society-based arguments or intra-institutional dynamics as reasons for the maintenance of such gaps. This book enriches our understanding of policy dynamics in democratic systems by introducing a third line of argument, one that emphasizes the effectiverole state institutions play in maintaining such arrangements for long periods of time, often against the public will.

Niva Golan-Nadir is a Research Associate at the University at Albany, SUNY, USA, and a teaching faculty member at Reichman University (IDC Herzliya) and The Open University of Israel.