About
Osnat Akirav is an associate professor in Political Science at the Western Galilee College, Israel. She is the president of Israel Political Science Association. She holds a PhD from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and postdoc from UCSD. In 2016 she was a visiting scholar at Stanford university.
Her specialization is in legislative studies, setting the agenda, candidate selection methods, government formation, democratic backsliding, local government, gender and politics, minorities and politics, research methods and Israeli political system.
Her papers have been published in various journals, including Party Politics, West European Politics, Parliamentary Affairs, International Political Science Review, British Politics, Journal of legislative studies, representation, Legislative Studies Quarterly, PS: Political Science & Politics. She published the book "Parliamentary Representation of Political Minorities" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024). Professor Akirav won several competitive research grants including ISF and GIF.
She is a board member of the Research Committee of Legislative Specialists (RCLS) of the International Political Science Association (IPSA). She also a board member of the Association for Israel Studies (AIS) and a board member of the Israeli Association of legislation.
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She served 10 years as local council representative. In 2010 and in 2015 she received a prize for outstanding teaching in political science from the American Political Science Association.
In 2012 and 2016 she received a prize for best article from the Israeli Political Science Association. In 2015, 2018-2024 she received a prize for excellent researcher from the Western Galilee College. In 2012 she received Edmond Safra award for outstanding achievement and excellence. And, in 2022 she received the New Pioneers award from the Union Sefaradi Mundial for her contribution to the Israeli society.
Between 2019-2024 she was the head of the Galilee Research Institute (which she was one of the establishers) at the Western Galilee College. And, between 2020-2023 she was the Western Galilee College president' advisor for gender fairness.
Since 2008, Akirav is a voluntary academic advisor and lecturer at WePower – a non-profit, non-partisan Israeli NGO. In March 2018 she delivered a speech about "Women’s Political Participation" at the annual conference organized by the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) of the United Nation in New York city.