The same appears to be true at Harvard. MacFarquhar, who also calls recruiting "not an easy task," reports that a recent batch of seven offers to faculty at other schools yielded only two acceptances.

Both he and Pippin say family considerations, such as finding a job for a professor's spouse, are increasingly important. Hoffmann, the Harvard department veteran, adds Cambridge's unique brand of weather to the list.

But at Harvard especially, many government professors say, the rules for hiring and promoting may be more serious obstacles.

If the government department has any trouble recruiting, it may not be its own fault.

"Harvard procedures, not those of the department, are very slow," says Hoffmann. "It is indeed infuriating sometimes to see someone you want try to get appointed."

However, at least one department member, Mansfield, says the department may also be to blame.

"The department has gotten very big," says Mansfield. "It's hard to make a problem for one part of it a concern for the whole."

The "problem" Mansfield refers to may be a weakness, widely reported in the past few years, in the department's Faculty in American politics and constitutional law. How the department has addressed these problems may suggest how well it will fill the Benhabib hole.