Rami Zeedan
- Associate Professor
- Founding Editor in Chief, Druze Studies Journal (DSJ)
- Acting Director of the Jewish Studies Program (Fall 2023 - Fall 2024)
- Director of Undergraduate Studies for Jewish Studies (Fall 2020- Fall 2024)
- (On research sabbatical in Spring 2025)
Contact Info
Biography —
Prof. Zeedan is a political scientist and historian of modern Israel. He holds a PhD (2013) in Israel Studies from the University of Haifa, where he completed a dissertation on “The Financial Crisis in Arab Local Authorities in Israel from 1970-2007: Local and National Factors” (in Hebrew, 2012). He is the author of several academic articles and two books: the Arab-Palestinian Society in the Israeli Political System: Integration Versus Segregation in the Twenty-First Century. (Lexington Books, 2019) and Battalion of Arab- the History of the Minorities’ Unit in the IDF from 1948 to 1956 (Modan, 2015, Hebrew).
Before joining the University of Kansas, Prof. Zeedan held visiting positions and fellowships at New York University, University of California, Berkeley, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO), Germany, the Open University of Israel, and Kinneret College. Dr. Rami Zeedan joined the University of Kansas in 2018 as Assistant Professor.
His research focuses on the Arab-Palestinian society in Israel in the context of an ethnic minority in a nation-state while examining Arab politics at the national level and integration in the Israeli polity, Arab local governments and local leadership, public opinion, election predictions, and the history of the integration of Arabs in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). His current research project aims to discover the role of the IDF minorities’ unit in Israel’s wars, mainly the War of 1967 and the War of 1973, and how it helped shape the process of integration of the Druze in Israel’s society.
Prof. Zeedan is the founding editor of the Druze Studies Journal (DSJ) and leads the project of the Druze Studies.
He is the co-recipient of the Christopher Haufler KU Core Innovation Award in 2023.
Education —
Research —
- Israeli politics and history
- Druze Studies
- Military history
- Middle-Eastern politics
- Ethnic politics
- Local governments
- Public opinion
Teaching —
- Politics and Government in Israel
- The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
- The Arab-Palestinian Society in Israel
- Politics of the Middle East (Internarial relations & comparative politics)
- First Year seminar: Life, Death, and the Afterlife in Modern Israeli Society
- Israel: From Idea to Statehood
- Israel/Palestine: The War of 1948
- The Historian's Research Tools
- Research Methods in Political Sciences
- Statistics, Surveys, and polling methods
Selected Publications —
Books
Zeedan, R. (ed.) (2024). Podcast: Israel's Divides Explained. The University of Kansas. https://opentext.ku.edu/israelsdivides/
Zeedan, R. (2019). The Arab-Palestinian Society in the Israeli Political System in the- Integration versus Segregation in the Twenty-First Century. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. ISBN 978-1-4985-5314-8. Link
Zeedan, R. (2015). Battalion of Arab- The History of the Minorities' Unit in the IDF from 1948 to 1956. Ben Shemen, Israel: Modan Publishing, in cooperation with Maarachot. 235 pages. (Hebrew) Link
Articles in Peer-Reviewed Journals and Book Chapters (recent)
Zeedan, R. (2024). College Student Engagement and Success Through Inclusive Learning Environment and Experiential Learning in Courses about Israel and Palestine. Front. Educ. 9. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/education/articles/10.3389/feduc.2024.1497045
Zeedan, R. (2024). The Druze vote in Israel: between ideology, socioeconomic status, kinship, and the Nation-State Basic Law. Democratization. https://doi.org/10.1080/13510347.2024.2414214
Zeedan, R. (2024). Social Identity and Voting Behavior in a Deeply Divided Society: The Case of Israel. Societies, 14(9), 177. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc14090177
Hazran, Y., Reed, M. A. ., Schäbler, B., Timani, H. S., & Zeedan, R. (2024). The Status of Druze Studies and Launching the Druze Studies Journal (DSJ). Druze Studies Journal, 2024(1). https://doi.org/10.17161/druze.2024.22602
Johnson, C., & Zeedan, R. (2024). Bibliography of Periodical Literature on the Druze in 2023. Druze Studies Journal, 2024(1). https://doi.org/10.17161/druze.2024.22381
Zeedan, R. & Hogan, R.E. (2022). The Correlation between Budgets and Matriculation Exams: The Case of Jewish and Arab Schools in Israel. Education Sciences 12(8): 545. Link
Beeri, I., Zaidan, A., & Zeedan, R. (2021). Willingness to pay taxes through mutual trust: The effect of fairness, governability, tax-enforcement and outsourcing on local tax collection rates. Governance, 1–24. Link
Zeedan, R. and Wilcoxson, J. (2021). Obama vs. Trump - Different Approaches to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: Win-Win vs. Win-Lose Methods and Pure Mediation vs. Power Mediation, Arab World Geographer 24 (1): 1-24. Link
Zeedan, R. and Luce, M. (2021). Druze Women and Gender in Druze Society: A Systematic literature review. Religions 12(12): 1111. Link
Zeedan, R. (2020). Reconsidering the Druze Narrative in the Wake of the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People. Israel Studies, 25(3), 153-166. Link
Zeedan, R. (2020). “The Palestinian political parties and local self-governance during the British Mandate: Democracy and the Clan,” in Cohen, M. J. (2020). The British Mandate in Palestine: A Centenary Volume, 1920–2020. Routledge. Link
Zeedan, R. (2019). The 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections: What Went Wrong in Pre-Election Polls? Demographics Help to Explain. J, 2, 84-101. DOI: 10.3390/j2010007
Zeedan, R. “The Druze Community in Israel.” Oxford Bibliographies in “Jewish Studies.” Ed. Naomi Seidman. New York: Oxford University Press. 27 February 2019.
Zeedan, R. (2019). The Role of Military Service in the Integration/Segregation of Muslims, Christians, and Druze within Israel.” Societies 9(1): 1. DOI:10.3390/soc9010001
Zeedan, R. (2018). Predicting the Vote in Kinship-Based Municipal Elections- the case of Arab localities in Israel. Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 38(1), pp. 87-102. Link
Zeedan, R. (2017). Bigger, but not always Better: Size and Local Democracy in Israeli Amalgamated Local Governments. Journal of Urban Affairs, 39 (5), pp. 711-728. Link
Zeedan, R., Vigoda-Gadot, E., & Ben-Artzi Y. (2017). “Causes of (and Solutions for?) Financial Crises in Local Governments: Insights from Local Arab Authorities in Israel”, Administration & Society, 49 (7), pp. 1065-1083. (Advance online publication 21 November 2014). Link
Zeedan, R. (2013). "Israel’s 2003 Plan for Unification of Local Authorities". Israel Affairs. 19:1: 170-190.
Awards & Honors —
Co-recipient of the Christopher Haufler KU Core Innovation Award in 2023.