Prof. Hanna Lerner’s research concerns the intersection between politics and law, with particular focus on comparative constitution making, religion and politics, judicial politics and democratic theory, civil society, and international labor rights in transnational supply chains.
She is the author of Making Constitutions in Deeply Divided Societies (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and editor of Global Justice and International Labour rights (with Yossi Dahan and Faina Milman-Sivan, Cambridge University Press, 2016), Constitution Writing, Religion and Democracy (with Aslı U. Bali, Cambridge University Press, 2017) and Comparative Constitution Making (with David Landau, Edward Elgar 2019). Her articles appeared in numerous books and in journals including Journal of Democracy, Law and Social Inquiry, World Politics, Review of International Organizations, Michigan Journal of International Law, Theoretical Inquiries in Law, Constellations, Nations and Nationalism, Journal of Social Philosophy, Cornell International Law Journal, Journal of Business Ethics. She had also co-edited a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist on religion and constitutionalism.
Prof. Lerner is currently a Fellow in Law and Normative Thinking at the Center for Human Values, Princeton University (2025-6). She served as the Head of the School of Political Science, Government and International Affairs at Tel Aviv University between October 2020 and December 2024.
She received her BA in philosophy and history and her MA in philosophy (magna cum laude) from Tel-Aviv University. She earned her MPhil and PhD in political science from Columbia University, New York.
In 2014 she convened a research group on constitutionalism, religion and human rights at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF), Bielefeld University, Germany, together with Mirjam Künkler and Shylashri Shankar. Prof. Lerner also held visiting fellowships at Princeton Institute of International and Regional Studies and at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Before joining Tel Aviv University she served as deputy director of the School of Educational Leadership at the Mandel Institute in Jerusalem. She also has vast experience as a journalist and radio news editor, and was the founding-director of the news department of Radio Darom (Radio South).