Asa Maron is a Lecturer in the Sociology Department at the University of Haifa. Previously he held postdoctoral positions at Stanford University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He is a political sociologist specializing in the sociology of the welfare state and neoliberalism, with an emphasis on the transformation of the state, its politics, institutional dynamics, and consequences for statesociety relations. He has published in Law & Society Review, Administration & Society, Social Policy & Administration, and Mediterranean Politics.

Michael Shalev is a political sociologist at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a visiting at the University of California at Berkeley. His primary research interests are in the political economy of Israel and rich democracies generally, focusing on the politics of social and economic policy, social stratification, and the socio-economic underpinnings of political action. He is the author of Labour and the Political Economy in Israel (1992) and editor of The Privatization of Social Policy? (1996). He has published in World Politics, Socio-Economic Review, Social Forces and other journals. His recent research is on the mass protests of 2011 in Israel and Southern Europe.

• Foreword: Israel, Neoliberalism and Comparative Political Economy


• 1: Asa Maron and Michael Shalev: Introduction


• Part 1. Transformations of the Key Actors


• 2: Lev Grinberg: Paving the Way to Neoliberalism: The Self-Destruction of the Zionist Labor Movement


• 3: Daniel Maman: Big Business and the State in the Neoliberal Era: What Changed, What Didn't?


• 4: Daniel Maman and Zeev Rosenhek: The Reconfigured Institutional Architecture of the State: The Rise of Fiscal and Monetary Authorities


• 5: Ronen Mandelkern: Institutionalizing the Liberal Creed: Economists in Israel's Long Journey towards Political-Economic Liberalization


• Part 2. Neoliberalism and Social Policy Reform


• 6: Michal Koreh and Michael Shalev: Pathways to Neoliberalism: The Institutional Logic of a Welfare State Reform


• 7: Sara Helman and Asa Maron: Wisconsin Works' In Israel? Imported Ideas, Domestic Coalitions, And The Institutional Politics Of Re-Commodification


• 8: Sharon Asiskovitch: Bureaucrats, Politicians, and the Politics of Bureaucratic Autonomy: Reforming Child Allowances and Healthcare


• Part 3. Neoliberalism and the Casualization of Employment


• 9: Michal Tabibian-Mizrahi and Michael Shalev: Precarious Employment in the Public Sector: How Neoliberal Practices Preceded Ideology


• 10: Guy Mundlak: Contradictions in Neoliberal Reforms: The Regulation of Labor Subcontracting


• 11: Asa Maron and Michael Shalev: Conclusion