Israeli elections and their aftermath

A round-table on the 2015 Israeli elections and their aftermath: Political parties, stabilitiy and the peace process.

Guest speakers

• Julien Bauer, Université du Québec à Montréal
• Yakub Halabi, Concordia University
• Csaba Nikolenyi, Concordia University
• Harold Waller, McGill University

About the speakers

Julien Bauer has served as a researcher for the Quebec government and is a professor of political science at Université du Québec à Montréal. He received his Ph.D in Political Science from Sorbonne and is a fellow of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research. He is the author, inter alia, of Le système politique israélien (2000), Les partis religieux en Israël (1991), published in the prestigious Collection Collection “Que Sais-Je?” at Presses Universitaires de France (P.U.F.). His latest book, Sept années à Jérusalem (Éditions du Marais, 2012) recounts his experiences living in Jerusalem during his recent sabbatical.

Yakub Halabi is an Arab-Israeli citizen. He finished his B.A and Master's degree at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in economics and international relations. Then he pursued Ph.D. degree in international relations at the University of Denver, Colorado. Dr. Halabi taught international relations between 2001-2010 at the University of Haifa and the Western Galilee College in Israel. In 2011 he joined the Political Science Department at Concordia University as LTA at the rank of Assistant Professor to teach international relations. Dr. Halabi has a major interest in democracy and democratic peace in the Middle East, political economy of the Middle East, and Israeli foreign policy, Israel-Palestine relations, and politics of the Palestinian Authority.

Csaba Nikolenyi received his PhD from the University of British Columbia in 2000 and was hired by Concordia University the same year. His research focuses on the comparative study of political parties, electoral systems and legislatures in post-communist democracies as well as on the political systems of Israel and India. He was former English Co-Editor of the Canadian Journal of Political Science (2006-11). He served as Code Administrator in the Faculty of Arts and Science between 2009 and 2011 and as Chair of the Department of Political Science between 2011 and 2014. Currently, he is the Director of the Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies. Dr. Nikolenyi has published extensively in comparative politics journals and has authored two books: Minority Government in India (Routledge 2010) and Institutional Design and Party Government in Post-Communist Democracies (Oxford University Press, 2014). He was Visiting Professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2007-8) and at the Centre for European Studies at the Australian National University (2012).

Harold M. Waller is a co-founder of Canadian Academics for Peace in the Middle East and is professor of political science at McGill University. He received his PhD from Georgetown University. His research interests include Jewish political studies and Israeli politics. He is a member of the academic council of the Canadian Institute for Jewish research, a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, as well as a former Director of the North American Studies Program at McGill University. He has contributed several chapters, refereed articles on those subjects on Jewish political life in Canada, Israeli policy and the peace process. He has published over 30 articles on politics in publications such as The New Leader, The New Republic, Viezpoints, La Presse, and The New Federation.