Towards a New Professional Focus for PoliticalScience and Public Administration inArab Universities: A Theoretical Study

The objective of this paper is to show how policyanalysis as a new field in social sciences can help to rescue the fieldsof political science and public administration in Arab universitiesfrom their ongoing crisis. The crisis is embodied in the absence of aprofessional focus in the two fields. To achieve that objective thepaper is divided into main sections discussing the present status ofpolitical science and public administration in the Arab world, thedevelopment of policy perspective in social sciences, the developmentof policy analysis as a profession in government, and thereason for the underdeveloped status of policy analysis in Arabuniversities, and concludes by proposing a multidisciplinarycurriculum focusing on government policy to transform thedepartments of political science and public administration in Arabuniversities and realize the goal of professionalism.