Two scholars, Andrew M. Moravcsik and A. Iain Johnston, have both received rare internal tenures in the government department.

The decisions come just one year after two assistant professors in the Government Department--Bonnie Honig and Peter Berkowitz--were denied tenure in highly-publicized cases.

Honig's case sparked a letter-writing campaign from other scholars in the Faculty, while Berkowitz appealed the decision with the help of prominent law school Professor Charles R. Nesson.

However, Government Department administrators say the most recent appointments are not part of any change in policy.

"It's important to give all junior scholars here a fair shot at promotion to full professor...even though we do not have a tenure track system, but the aim of all searches is to find the best scholars to teach our undergraduate and graduate students," Government Department Chair Roderick MacFarquhar wrote in an e-mail message.

Buttenwieser University Professor Stanley H. Hoffmann agreed that "we have a brilliant junior faculty, and when such nation-wide searches put them on top, it would be unfair and stupid not to give them tenure."

Hoffman also pointed out that "the government department has also recently been joined by excellent people from other universities--Jeff Frieden from UCLA and Liz Perry from Michigan, for example. So we have the best of both worlds, talent from inside Harvard and the rest of the country."

Before this year, Professor of Government Grzegorz Ekiert was the most recent professor to receive an internal tenure promotion in the government department. Ekiert was promoted two years ago.