Rami Zeedan


Rami Zeedan
  • Acting Director of the Jewish Studies Program (Fall 2023 - Fall 2024)
  • Director of Undergraduate Studies for Jewish Studies
  • Founding Editor in Chief, Druze Studies Journal (DSJ)
  • Associate Professor

Contact Info

Wescoe Hall, Room 4017 E

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

Ph.D. in Israel Studies, University of Haifa, 2013, Israel
M.A. in (Cum Laude) in Israel Studies, University of Haifa, 2006, Israel
B.A. in Statistics and Israel Studies, University of Haifa, 2002, Israel

Research

  • History of modern Israel
  • Israeli politics
  • Druze Studies
  • Middle-Eastern politics
  • Ethnic politics
  • Urban affairs
  • 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. Societies14(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 Journal2024(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 Journal2024(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.