Stephen Levine is a Professor of Political Science at Victoria University of Wellington and was the founding Head of the university’s School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations (HPPI)

He is founder of the University’s graduate-level parliamentary internship programme, introduced in 2000 and enjoying the support of successive Speakers of the New Zealand House of Representatives

Professor Levine has played an important role in administering, establishing and promoting School prizes recognising undergraduate and graduate student achievement and research excellence. He also established the Political Science and International Relations Programme’s Leslie Lipson Archive, comprising publications by present and former staff (and students) in the University’s political science and international relations programme, and also arranged for portraits (accompanied by brief biographies) of the programme’s founding Professor (Leslie Lipson) and his successors to be hung around the premises as a contribution to the programme’s ‘institutional memory’. In 2009 he was recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List by being appointed Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit ‘for services to education and the Jewish community’

A comparative politics specialist, Professor Levine has taught courses on New Zealand politics, Pacific Islands politics, and U.S. politics. His more recent responsibilities include courses on Southeast Asian politics and on African politics (in addition to the postgraduate parliamentary internship programme). He has also taught courses on Politics, Sports and the Arts; Political Psychology; and Political Sociology

Professor Levine has written extensively about New Zealand’s politics, elections and international relations. Professor Levine has co-edited books about each of New Zealand’s elections under MMP—From Campaign to Coalition (1996); Left Turn (1999); New Zealand Votes (2002); The Baubles of Office (2005); Key to Victory (2008); Kicking the Tyres (2011); and Moments of Truth (2014). He served as Director of the New Zealand Political Change Project (1995–2003), funded by the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology, which examined the impact of MMP on New Zealand’s government and politics. From the mid-1980s Professor Levine and his colleague Professor Nigel S. Roberts were responsible for nationwide surveys of public opinion during New Zealand’s triennial parliamentary campaigns, with their findings appearing in journals and book chapters. Professor Levine served several terms as editor of Political Science (subsequently a SAGE publication and now published by Taylor & Francis, with all of its issues made digitally available), completing his latest term in 2009 as the journal’s longest-serving editor. In 2005 he was appointed founding co-editor of the Royal Society of New Zealand’s new social science journal, Kotuitui, completing his term in 2009. From 2003 to 2007 Professor Levine served as a member of the board of Fulbright New Zealand [The New Zealand-United States Educational Foundation]

Professor Levine was the organiser of the 2017 Victoria University of Wellington post-election conference, held on Wednesday, 6 December 2017, at the Legislative Council Chamber, Parliament Buildings, Wellington. The conference lead to the 2017 election book, Stardust and Substance: New Zealand’s 2017 Election, published by Victoria University Press in September 2018

In 2011 Professor Levine was invited by the University of Auckland to present its annual Chapman Lecture (which was entitled ‘New Zealand Politics: Democracy and the Semi-Sovereign People’)

In 2012 Professors Levine and Roberts completed the editing of the ‘Government and Nation’ theme for Te Ara, the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage’s online Encyclopedia of New Zealand, which was launched in June 2012 by the Governor-General at a special function held in the Beehive Banquet Hall. Professor Levine contributed three of the ‘entries’ to the encyclopedia: on New Zealand’s capital city; on the country’s coat of arms; and on New Zealand’s political values