The Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was the first Department of Political Science to be established in Israel. The late Prof. Benjamin Akzin founded the department and was its first Department Chair, from 1950 until the early 1960s. From its inception and in accordance with the conceptual framework in which it was founded, the Department of Political Science and Public Administration included three areas of study: Political Thought, Political Institutions (including Comparative Politics and Israeli Government) and Public Administration.

Today, the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University is the leading Political Science Department in Israel and has the largest number of graduate students enrolled in M.A. and Ph.D. programs. Four of the Department’s Emeriti Professors have received the Israel Prize, which is the highest prize for academic excellence in Israel: Prof. Benjamin Akzin, Prof. Shlomo Avineri, Prof. Yehezkel Dror, and Prof. Jacob Landau.

The Department seeks to develop and maintain high standards of teaching and research in the various sub-fields of Political Science. Members of the Department are involved in high profile research both in Israel and abroad. Its faculty also has a tradition of commitment through professional contribution to the public sphere. In addition to serving on a large number of governmental and public committees (under the auspices of the Israeli Knesset, the President of Israel, various government ministries and in the non-governmental public sector), departmental faculty members have served and are serving in positions such as members of the Israeli Knesset, Directors General of Government Ministries, Director of the Civil Service and Deputy Chair of the Israel Council for Higher Education.

In recent years, the Department has placed increasingly greater emphasis on its graduate studies programs and this year the M.A. program in Political Science is one of the two largest M.A. Degree programs in the Social Sciences Faculty, with over 150 enrolled students. Included in the M.A. Degree program are three special M.A. programs: 1) M.A. in Political Science with special emphasis on Democracy Studies and Civics (this program was established in 2001, in cooperation with the Gilo Center), 2) M.A. in Political Science with special emphasis on Politics and Communication (this program is in its first year and was established in cooperation with the Department of Communication, which has a “sister program” for its M.A. students in Political Communication), and 3) M.A. in Political Science with a Minor in International Relations (taught in cooperation with the Department of International Relations – this program has existed for many years and was revised in 2004-5 to encourage maximal cooperation between the departments – and it has a “sister program” in the Department of International Relations, which offers an M.A. in International Relations with a Minor in Political Science). In addition, the Department of Political Science has a large number of doctoral students (at present, approximately 40) and, in addition, encourages its best students to consider doctoral programs abroad. Given that political science is a highly varied discipline, which integrates within it widely divergent bodies of knowledge, the Political Science Department at the Hebrew University strives to maintain a broad base that provides the possibility of study in both the traditional and the “cutting edge” areas of the discipline, as well as in numerous interdisciplinary areas. The Department seeks to diversify the sub-disciplinary and epistemic bases of its faculty, while allowing research groups to form and create centers of excellence.

SCIENTIFIC AREAS OF RESEARCH AND TEACHING

The central areas of scientific research and teaching in the Department are Political Theory (both the History of Political Thought and Contemporary Issues in Political Philosophy), Comparative Politics and Government, Political Behavior and Communication, and Public Administration and Policy. The Department has a special commitment to issues relating to Israeli Politics and Institutions.

Political Theory

Comparative Politics and Political Institutions

Political Behavior and Communication

Public Administration and Policy

Israeli Politics