Menachem Hofnung teaches at the Department of Political Science of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is a Visiting Professor at the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies for the 2020-21 academic year. He served as the academic director of the Joint Graduate Program in Public Policy and Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and academic director of the Gilo Center for Democracy and Civic Education.

Professor Hofnung's research covers Israeli national security and civil liberties, constitutional politics and comparative political finance. He is past president of the Association for Israel Studies (2013-2015) and former chair of the Department of Political Science of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2015 to 2017). He also served as president of the Israeli Law and Society Association from 2007 to 2010 and as chair of the International Political Science Association Research Committee on Political Finance from 2006 to 2009.

He taught at the University of California, Berkeley and Irvine, San Francisco State University, the University of Florida at Gainesville, Moscow State University, Jindal Global University (India), Sofia University, and was a research fellow at the Center for Law and Society at the University of California at Berkeley and Sydney University, Australia. Professor Hofnung is one of the editors in the forthcoming handbook by Hazan R., Dowty H., Hofnung M., Rahat G. (editors), Oxford Handbook of Israeli Politics and Society (New York: Oxford University Press, early 2021).

Hofnung served as member of the National Commission on Campaign Finance Reform (Levin Commission, 2000), and was a member of the National Commission on the Structure of Governmental Administration in Israel (Magidor Commission, 2006). He has served in the Israeli Defense Forces as a combat officer and retired from reserve duty at the rank of Major.