Gallya Lahav

Biography

Gallya Lahav is a Professor of Political Science and Chair of Globalization and International Relations academic program at Stony Brook University. She is a recipient of  both the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching as well as the student-nominated Teaching award from the SBU College of Arts and Sciences. She holds graduate degrees in political science from the London School of Economics and the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Lahav teaches and writes on international migration and European integration. Among her numerous journal articles and book chapters, her works have appeared in Comparative Political Studies, the American Journal of Political Research, Political Behavior, International Migration Review, Global Governance, Democracy and Security, West European Politics, Journal of Ethnicity and Race, and Journal of Ethnicity and Migration. She is also currently serving on the editorial board of the journal, Social Sciences, as well as executive research committee of the Canadian Immigration Metropolis Integration and Inclusion (CIMII) index. Lahav has been the recipient of several grants and awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship, the Mellon Foundation, and the National Science Foundation (NSF). She has also served as a consultant to the UN Population Division, and has been expert witness to the US Special Operations Forces (SOCOM), European Parliament, the Israel Population and Immigration Authority (PIBA), and the Canadian Air Transport Safety Association. She was named distinguished visiting chair professor of Mobility at the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies (SFM) in Neuchatel, Switzerland (2010). Over the last years, she was also appointed as visiting faculty at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy, the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, at the University of California, San Diego, the Immigration Lab at Stanford University, and in the International MA Program on Migration at Tel-Aviv University, Israel. Dr. Lahav is currently the co-President of the Migration and Citizenship Section of the American Political Science Association, and fellow of the Academic Engagement Network. She serves on the executive board of Stony Brook Hillel, and the Superintendent’s Task Force on Anti Semitism, Racism and Hate Speech at the Three Village School District. Gallya remains an avid soccer fan, live music roadie and global travel enthusiast! Her mantra is: Think Global, Act Local.

Research

Lahav specializes in Comparative Political Behavior and has pedagogical interests in European and EU politics, Immigration and Refugee Politics, Extreme-right Politics, Public Opinion, and Political Culture. She teaches and writes on the politics of international migration and European integration. Her most recent book, Migration, Security, and the 'Liberal" State: the Politics of Immigration Regulation in the United States and Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2024) tracked the link between migration and national security (through media protrayal and discourse) and its impact on public perceptions and policy in the US and Europe. Her articles have appeared in several books and journals on international relations and comparative politics. Among peer-reviewed journals, her work has appeared in International Migraiton Review, Comparative Political Studies, the American Journal of Political Research, Political Behavior, the Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Global Governance, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and West European Politics.

RECENT Publications - Articles

Lahav, Gallya. "UNRWA, UNHCR, and the Politicization of Refugee Protections: Re-
Evaluating a Humanitarian International Refugee Regime in the 21st
Century." Democracy and Security (2026).

Lahav, Gallya. “Climate Change, Drought and Potential Environmental Migration
Flows under Different Policy"(with Oleg Smirnov, John Orbell, Minghua Zhang,
Tingyin Xiao).International Migration Review (2023).

Lahav, Gallya. "Understanding Global Migration." Edited by James F. Hollifield and
Neil Foley. Perspectives on Politics, review in Cambridge University Press (2023).
Issue 2, vol 1. 783-786.

Lahav, Gallya and Luedtke, Adam.  “Immigration Policy, The Europeanization of
Immigration Policies:  An Anthology of Migration and Social
Transformation." Springer International Publishing (2016): Chapter 8 105-119

Lahav, Gallya, and Arie Perliger. "Immigrant integration, political radicalization and
terrorism in Europe: some preliminary insights from the early millennium
(2000–2010) ." Handbook on Migration and Social Policy (2016): 265.

Lahav, Gallya. "The Global Challenge of the Refugee Exodus." Current
History 115.777 (2016): 10-16.

Bloom, Ben-Nun, Pazit, Arikan, Gizem, and Lahav, Gallya. "The effect of perceived
cultural and material threats on ethnic preferences in immigration attitudes ."  Ethnic
and Racial Studies 38.10 (2015): 1760-1778.

Lahav, Gallya, Anthony M. Messina, and Joseph Paul Vasquez. "Were political elite
attitudes toward immigration securitized after 11 September? Survey evidence from
the European Parliament ."  Migration Studies 2.2 (2014): 212-234.

Lahav, Gallya. "Mobilizing against mobility: Immigration politics in a new security
world." Critical Mobilities. Lausanne: EPFL 123152 (2013).

Lahav, Gallya.  “Threat and Immigration Attitudes in Liberal Democracies: The Role
of Framing in Structuring Public Opinion.” Immigration and Public Opinion, edited by
Gary Freeman, Randall Hansen, and David Leal,  Routledge (2013).

RECENT Publications - Books

Lahav, Gallya. “Immigration and Politics in the New Europe:  Reinventing Borders.” Cambridge University Press(2004).

Lahav, Gallya, “The Migration Reader: Exploring Politics and Policy-making” (with Anthony M. Messina).  Lynne Rienner, Publishers, Boulder, CO(2005). 

Lahav, Gallya and Guiraudon, Virginie “Immigration Policy in Europe:  The Politics of Control.”  Routledge, London and New York (2007).

Lahav, Gallya, "Taking Stock:  Current Trends and Advances in the Comparative Politics of Immigration," Polity Special Issue (with Anthony Messina) (July 2021)

Lahav, Gallya, Anthony. M. Messina. "Immigration, Security, and the ‘Liberal’ State:  the Politics of Immigration Regulation in the United States and Europe."  Cambridge University Press (2024).  

Lahav, Gallya. "UNRWA, UNHCR, and the Politicizatin of Refugee Protections: Re-Evaluating a Humanitarian International Refugee Regime in the 21st Century." Democracy and Security (2026).

Teaching

Lahav specializes in Comparative Political Behavior, and is an expert on International Migration (within a comparative political and IR frameworks).  She has pedagogical interests in Immigration and Refugee Politics, Identity politics, Extreme-Right politics, European and European Union politics, Public Opinion, Political Culture, and the Politics of International Security

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