Is intraparty regulated conflict vital for liberal democracy?

The current Israeli government attempts to weaken the high court and legal advisory in the name of balancing the relationship between the legislative and the judicial branches. The opponents of this so-called “reform” argue that Israel, unlike other democracies, has no check and balance on the executive power (which controls the legislature) save for the judicial system. In return, the supporters of the “reform” pose a strong argument, claiming that the blessing of Israel’s extreme multipartism is that parties themselves serve as de-facto restraining mechanism. This line of argument, for example, falls in line with Lijphart's consensus government model. Yet when one closely inspects the Israeli political parties, one is hardly convinced that they really provide effective checks and balances on the executive branch. That is, they clearly served as such in the past: when they had a say regrading policy formation, when their institutions played a central role in leadership and candidate selection, and as long as they included rival internal camps. Yet once they had transformed into mainly monolithic centralized-personalized platforms for political leaders, they no longer play this role. The paper will propose a theory on the conditions in which parties serve as checks and balances mechanism. It will be demonstrated that one important element for them to serve this role is that of containing an intraparty regulated conflict. The theory will be exemplified on the basis of Israeli political experience.