The turnover of Palestinian governments and its selected impacts on the sustainability of public policy

Abstract

The aim of this research is examining governmental turnover and its impact on the sustainability of public policy in the Palestinian context. We argue that the absence of a clear political program of governments and the absence of clear rules in professional and independent civil service allows Palestinian ministers to politicize the ministries they run, in addition to imposing their personal visions on diff erent administrative levels, which makes the frequent turnover of governments and ministerial faces a challenge to the administrative level’s capability to create and implement sustainable public policies. We examined and compared through in-depth interviews the relationship between the political dimension of government formation and its surrounding considerations with the administrative executive dimension in Palestinian conditions. We concluded that professionals from most ministries think that frequent ministerial turnover usually has a negative impact on the sustainability of public policy while only respondents from three ministries stated that turnover could have a positive impact.