The Development of the Israeli Public Procurement Regime

Public procurement is a crucial instrument for large-scale governmental economic activity and is shaped and used by political actors to cater to political interests. This article wishes to explore the evolution of the Israeli public procurement regime by highlighting the role of actors as drivers of change. In particular, this article asks how did the Israel public procurement regime and its actors change over time? What are the characteristics of the Israeli public procumbent regimes? What are the factors that drive change in the Israeli public procurement regime? Departing from the dominant periodization of the Israeli procurement regime, which centers on the Mandatory Tenders Law, this study instead categorizes Israel’s procurement regime into four phases—ad-hoc, judicial precedent, legislative, and administrative—based on shifts in the constellation of dominant actors. Drawing from regulatory regime theory, it conceptualizes public procurement as an internal government regulatory framework , one where state actors create regulation for other state actors to follow, and aims to enrich the discussion by anaylzing little-researched aspects of public procurement as a political regulatory regime. Deriving its information from legal and regulatory sources, the paper argues that transitions between these phases result from a dynamic interplay between bureaucratic attitudes, judicial intervention, and ideological forces. Finally, this article outlines core components of a public procurement regime, providing a foundation for comparative analysis and further theoretical discussion about public procurement as a political instrument.