Towards a new professional focus for political science and public administration in arab universities: A theoretical study

The objective of this paper is to show how policy analysis as a new field in social sciences can help to rescue the fields of political science and public administration in Arab universities from their ongoing crisis. The crisis is embodied in the absence of a professional focus in the two fields. To achieve that objective the paper is divided into main sections discussing the present status of political science and public administration in the Arab world, the development of policy perspective in social sciences, the development of policy analysis as a profession in government, and the reason for the underdeveloped status of policy analysis in Arab universities, and concludes by proposing a multidisciplinary curriculum focusing on government policy to transform the departments of political science and public administration in Arab universities and realize the goal of professionalism.