Dr. Reuven Hazan

Dr. Reuven Hazan is the Chairmen of the Political Science Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Hazan recieved a PhD from Columbia University. Dr. Hazan's research focuses on analysis of dramatic political changes in Israel.

In the 2003-2004 academic year, Dr. Hazan taught the following courses as a visiting Israeli scholar at the Emory University Political Science Department:

Introduction to Comparative Politics (Spring 2004)

This course introduced students to the main concepts, institutions, processes and issues in the field of comparative politics. It also provided students with the major tools and methods for comparative political analysis. The course aimed at teaching students how to analyze the political institutions of different countries - largely the advanced industrial democracies, but others as well - and to assess their patterns of political behavior along with their resulting political outcomes. In doing so, it developed the students' ability to compare institutions and outcomes across political systems.

Israeli Politics and Society (Spring 2004)

This course presented an analysis, couched within theoretical frameworks from other Western democracies, of politics and society in Israel. Emphasis was on classification, typological mappings and model-derived explanations of how the social cleavages in Israeli society function and behave in the political process, and how the political institutions influence social divisions, particularly in light of the reforms during the last decade that transformed Israeli politics. This course also exposed students to some of the contemporary socio-political issues in Israel, particularly the highly contentious problem of religion and politics.

Israeli Parties and Elections (Fall 2003)

This course presented a comparative analysis of political parties and elections in Israel. The goal was to introduce students to the electoral politics of Israel while acquainting them with the basic terms, concepts and theories on political parties and elections. Emphasis focused on general, model-derived explanations of how the political parties function and behave in the Israeli electoral process, and particularly on the elaboration of the reforms that transformed the arena of Israeli politics in the 1990s and continue to reshape it today.

Parties and Elections (Fall 2003)

This course presented a comparative analysis, couched within theoretical frameworks, of political parties, party systems and elections in Western settings. The emphasis was on general classifications, typological mappings, model-derived explanations and the differences that affect the performance of parties and party systems. The goal of this course was to acquaint students with the basic terms, concepts, theories and arguments in the sub-fields of political parties and electoral systems, and to provide the theoretical and methodological tools necessary to undertake either an in-depth case study or a comparative cross-country analysis of parties and elections.