Reflections on the Relationship between the Government and Civil Society Organizations during the Covid-19 Pandemic: The Israeli Case

Schmid Hillel ()
Additional contact information
Schmid Hillel: Social Work and Social Welfare, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

Nonprofit Policy Forum, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 189-197

Abstract: The paper analyzes the relations between the government and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Israel. The paper presents the inconsistent policy of the government, which has been influenced by various interest groups and the very limited financial support allocated to CSOs during the health, economic and social crisis. The paper describes the government’s alienated attitude toward the CSOs as well as the reasons for that behavior. Special attention is devoted to the government’s misunderstanding of the mission and roles of CSOs in modern society, especially at times of crisis and national disasters. The paper also analyzes the organizational and strategic behavior of CSOs toward the government, which has also contributed to the alienated attitude of the government toward them. I argue that relations between CSOs and the government should be based on more trust, mutuality, and understanding on the part of both actors in order to change power-dependence relations, and that there is a need to establish more cross-sectoral partnerships for the benefit of citizens.

Keywords: COVID-19 pandemic; government; civil society organizations; alienation; financial support; collaboration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/npf-2021-0003 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:nonpfo:v:12:y:2021:i:1:p:189-197:n:2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/npf/html

DOI: 10.1515/npf-2021-0003

Access Statistics for this article

Nonprofit Policy Forum is currently edited by Dennis Young

More articles in Nonprofit Policy Forum from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().