Parties beyond national borders: exploring the activities of Israeli political parties abroad

In recent decades it has become a common practice for political parties to have active branches operating outside of their countries. The main reason for this practice is to mobilize potential voters living abroad. Israel, however, is a country in which citizens cannot vote abroad yet some parties nevertheless invest resources for sustaining their activities and branches outside of the country. Using the Israeli case, we aim to uncover additional incentives for parties to be present and active abroad. To do so, we map the activities of Israeli parties abroad and analyse their incentives, relying on documents and in-depth interviews with the parties’ directors of external relations. We find that parties’ activities can be divided into two basic groups. The first one includes diaspora-oriented activities, focusing mainly on maintaining ties with the Jewish communities abroad and gaining control over the institutions of the Zionist organizations. The second is focused on the Israeli state, by both improving the position of the party domestically and promoting Israel internationally according to the party’s ideology.