Toward a Thin Constitution Anchoring Israeli Governance

The Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) aims to prepare a detailed proposal for a Thin constitution. For this purpose, two working groups have been established: one group includes professionals whose role is to propose the constitutional arrangements; this is known as the “Research Group.” Alongside it is a second group – the “Thin Constitution Council” (Advisory Committee) – which serves the Research Group in an advisory capacity; its composition reflects all sectors of Israeli society. If we are successful, the State of Israel will enjoy a stable institutional system and regime.

Toward a Thin Constitution Anchoring Israeli Governance

Prof. Reuven Y. Hazan is a professor in and former chair of the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he is the first to hold the Chair in Israeli Democracy and Politics. He has taught about Israeli government and comparative politics for almost thirty years, both at the Hebrew University and at American universities such as Columbia, Emory, Harvard and Yale. His research and publications focus on the neo-institutional cornerstones of comparative politics: political parties and party systems, elections and electoral systems, and legislative studies. He served on the editorial board of leading political science journals (International Political Science Review, Party Politics, Journal of Legislative Studies) and on the executive committee of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR).

He has written and edited several books, special issues of journals, and dozens of book chapters and articles, covering both Israeli government and politics as well as more general theoretical and comparative political science scholarship. Hazan’s most recent publications are as lead editor of the Oxford Handbook on Israeli Politics and Society and co-author of Politics and Government in Israel. He has served on political reform commissions appointed in Israel and in other countries, he has advised Israeli political parties and the speaker of the Israeli parliament, worked as a senior research fellow at Israel’s top political think tanks, and his analysis of Israeli politics appears often in media outlets across the world (such as the New York Times and CNN).

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