An internationally renowned speaker, Professor Benhabib has lectured widely in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Latin America on public as well as academic topics. Several feature-length presentations have been made on her work and life (cf. below)

She has been an active member of the American Philosophical Association and the American Political Science Association. She was President of the APA in 2006-2007, having served formerly on its Program Committee (Eastern Division, 1986-1989). She has been a member of the Editorial Council of the American Political Science Association (2007-2010); Chair of its David Easton Award Committee (2005); and Normative Political Theory Section Chair in 1992. She has also served as Executive Committee Member of the Conference for the Study of Political Thought (1989-1992), as well as being on the Advisory Program Committee of the Society for Phenomenology and Existentialism (1987-1988).

She serves on the editorial boards of a number of national and international journals such as Political Theory; Constellations. An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory; Human Rights Review; Journal of International Political Theory; International Journal of Philosophical Studies; Citizenship Studies; Isegoria; Eutopias (both Spanish journals); Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Philosophie and Blatter fur Deutsche und Internationale Politik.

From 1986 to 1992 she was Co-Editor-in-Chief with Sveta Stojanovic of Praxis International.

In 1992, together with Andrew Arato, she founded the journal, Constellations. An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory and served as its Co-Editor-in-Chief till 1997.

Professor Benhabib has been involved with a number of international associations. She is a member of the Advisory Board of the Institut fur Socialforschung in Frankfurt and also a member of the Board of Overseers of the project on “Normative Orders” of the University of Frankfurt.

Dedicated to promoting intercultural dialogue and understanding (for which she was cited through the Ernst Bloch and Leopold Lucas prizes), in 2007 Professor Benhabib has established, together with Nina von Furstenberg and Giancarlo Bosetti, Istanbul seminars: Dialogues across all Divides. She is a Member of the Scientific Foundation of RESET Dialogues across cultures.

From 2009-2010 she has served as an Academic Member of the United Nations Civil Society Fund.

In October of 2023, she was awarded the 2023 Albert Hirschman Fellowship by the Institute for Human Sciences for Demos, Cosmos and Globus.  The Albert Hirschman Fellowship, in the name and honor of social scientist Albert O. Hirschman (1915 –2012), is given to distinguished senior scholars, who have contributed to re-framing some of the major questions in the social sciences.