Introduction By 1930 it was clear that the social reform movement in the UnitedStates, which found its national political embodiment in the Progres-sive party platform of 1912, had failed. It was clear to the reformers,and many of the participating national committees themselves haddied. When in the mid-1930s, in response to the Depression, the greatmajority of the demands of the movement and many of the specificprograms it advocated were enacted into law, no one thought of thereform movement of an earlier decade. It had failed, and only recentlyhas historical scholarship reminded us of the reform movement's exis-tence and its belated impact, for it created the ideology which madepossible the speedy enaetment of its programs under conditions ofemergency.1 For movements to arise which provide the ideological frameworksthat decision makers ultimately adopt, and to disappear, their contri-bution forgotten, is presumably not infrequent. While the tendency ofhistorians to overlook small movements that never achieved--or per-haps even sought--power is understandable, it might be expected thatpolitical scientists and sociologists, paying close attention to the deci-sion-making process, should be in a better position to identify thez'mportance of the ideological movement. Yet the inclination of socialscientists to dismiss the two opposing ideological movements withinIsrael that form the basis of this study is already apparent, although these moverolents, we shall argue, are essential for an understanding not rperely of Israeli policy in the l~'s{~seven years bllt ~velop- ~ment of Israel's political ~tructure in the ~LeaLs ahead. While it is possi- ble only to speculate concerning the reasons for this neglect, they mayr lie with the methods of study adopted by social scientists. Decision making has been approached through studying decision makers or through focusing upon actual decisions and attempting to trace the way in which they were made. The decision makers in turn have been identified by some students through examination of the official leader- ship of institutional structures and by others through the so-called reputational method, which relies.upon the perceptions of knowledge- able people in a community as to who the most influential persons are. In this method of study many are presumed to be behind the scenes and thus not identifiable merely through examination of institutional