Insiders within? The third sector and policy analysis in Israel

The Israeli Third Sector is particularly large and salient within its national context. Yet, despite The sector’s pivotal role in policy making and implementation in various policy realms, this important collective actor was ignored until recently in formal policy analysis and making in Israel. This chapter examines the Third Sector as a target and a participant in policy analysis processes. The main argument is that since 1999 there has been a change in policy analysis and making towards the Third Sector, which was initiated by Academia and Third Sector policy entrepreneurs, and was only partially adopted by government. In this process, intricate relations and tensions between “insiders” and “outsiders” exist. Academics and some Third Sector actors are clearly outsiders, and are treated like such. Other Third Sector actors, such as the quasi-NGO Zionist institutions and philanthropic foundations, are more deeply institutionalized in the policy networks, and can be defined as outsiders-within.