The Most Influential People Across History
Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines
Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.
Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.
We also provide custom rankings of people by discipline as well as interviews with influential academics who are currently active.
To use this tool, select the discipline (and optional subdiscipline) relevant to your research, and specify influential academics by history, world, or US. Even results that are counterintuitive are often enlightening (our algorithm always picks up a signal).
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List of the most influential people in Political Science,
#901
Yevgen Zakharov
#40898
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Yevgen Yukhymovych Zakharov is a Ukrainian human rights activist and member of the Ukrainian PEN. He is a chairman of the board of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, Director of the Kharkiv Human Rights Group. He was an activist in the dissident movement of the 1970s and 1980s.
Go to Profile#902
Steven B. Smith
#16379
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Steven B. Smith is the Alfred Cowles Professor of Political Science at Yale University. From 1996 to 2011 he was the Master of Branford College at Yale. Early life and education Steven Smith was born in 1951. He received his undergraduate degree from University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and continued his studies at Durham University , where he completed an MPhil in 1976, with his thesis written on the social and political doctrine of G. W. F. Hegel.
Go to Profile#903
Diana Schaub
#16773
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Diana J. Schaub is professor of political science at Loyola University Maryland. Schaub received both her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She teaches and writes on a wide range of issues in political philosophy and American political thought. Schaub was also a member of The President's Council on Bioethics.
Go to Profile#904
Moeletsi Mbeki
#24575
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Moeletsi Goduka Mbeki is a South African political economist and the deputy chairman of the South African Institute of International Affairs, an independent think tank based at the University of the Witwatersrand, and a political analyst for Nedcor Bank. He is a member of the executive council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies which is based in London. He is the younger brother of former President Thabo Mbeki and son of ANC leader Govan Mbeki. He has been a frequent critic of President Mbeki.
Go to Profile#905
Cynthia Weber
#44523
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Cynthia Weber is a Professor of International Relations at Sussex University, UK, and co-Director of the media company Pato Productions. Cynthia Weber was born in New Jersey, USA, and raised in Pennsylvania. She received a BA in Political Science from West Virginia University , an MA from Sussex University , and a PhD from Arizona State University . She held a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Southern California and has held visiting appointments at numerous universities including the New School University, the University of Arizona, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland.
Go to Profile#906
Carlos Taibo
#32686
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Carlos Taibo Arias is a writer, editor, and retired professor of political science at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Ideology Carlos Taibo is a staunch advocate of the anti-globalization movement, the degrowth movement, direct democracy and of anarchism. Taibo coined the phrase La globalización avanza hacia un caos que escapa a todo control. He has harshly criticized the idea that because economic growth impacts all spheres , it is associated with progress and welfare. This claim, that economic growth is related to progress and social welfare, is commonly questioned by critics of capi...
Go to Profile#907
Djamila Ribeiro
#32890
Overall Influence
1980 - Present (44 years)
Djamila Taís Ribeiro dos Santos is a Brazilian Black feminist philosopher and journalist. She graduated in political philosophy from the Federal University of São Paulo, where she also earned a master's degree on the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler. Ribeiro is a collaborating editor of weekly magazine CartaCapital, as well as a columnist for CartaCapital and Folha de S.Paulo.
Go to Profile#908
Douglas Schoen
#15923
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Douglas Schoen is an American lawyer, political analyst, author, lobbyist, and commentator. In 1977, he co-founded the political consulting firm Penn, Schoen & Berland, and was hired by President Bill Clinton and Ukrainian steel oligarch Victor Pinchuk. From 2009-2021 he worked for Fox News, and since 2021 for Newsmax TV.
Go to Profile#909
Joseph Carens
#25998
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Joseph H. Carens is a professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of Toronto, Canada. His research interests are mainly focused on contemporary political theory, especially on issues related to immigration and political community. Carens is an advocate of open borders, and an ethical theorist in the field of immigration.
Go to Profile#910
Anthony Downs
#60346
Overall Influence
#911
Howard J. Wiarda
#26066
Overall Influence
1939 - 2015 (76 years)
Howard J. Wiarda was an American academic who was the Dean Rusk Professor of International Relations and Founding Head of the Department of International Affairs at the University of Georgia. He also served in two think tanks in Washington, DC.
Go to Profile#912
Erik Ringmar
#18547
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Erik Ringmar is a professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations at İbn Haldun Üniversitesi, Istanbul, Turkey. Background Ringmar graduated with a PhD from the Department of Political Science, Yale University, in 1993. Between 1995 and 2007 he was senior lecturer in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics, United Kingdom, and between 2007 and 2013 he worked as a professor of political science in China, the last two years as Zhi Yuan Chair Professor of International Relations at Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, PRC. Between 2013 and 2019 he worked in the department of political science at Lund University, Sweden.
Go to Profile#913
Herb Asher
#23941
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Herbert B. Asher is a professor emeritus of political science at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. He is a well known commentator on current political events, writing numerous books on political polling and the like. One of the foremost authorities on Ohio politics, he has been interviewed by a host of news organizations that include CNN and CNBC. He gave the commencement address to Ohio State's graduating class of Winter 1996.
Go to Profile#914
Robert C. Tucker
#20845
Overall Influence
1918 - 2010 (92 years)
Robert Charles Tucker was an American political scientist and historian. Tucker is best remembered as a biographer of Joseph Stalin and as an analyst of the Soviet political system, which he saw as dynamic rather than unchanging.
Go to Profile#915
Friedrich Kratochwil
#17361
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Friedrich Kratochwil is a German university professor who studied at the University of Munich before migrating to the United States, then subsequently returning to Europe. He received a PhD from Princeton University.
Go to Profile#916
Peter J. Woolley
#22214
Overall Influence
1960 - Present (64 years)
Peter J. Woolley is an American political scientist, pollster, and founding director of PublicMind—an independent public opinion research group at Fairleigh Dickinson University. His research in public opinion and his commentary have been cited on a range of public issues including the effect of cable news on voter information, the constitutionality of public prayer, traffic safety, drone warfare, measuring support for independent candidates, and televising the US Supreme Court, He is also cited on New Jersey's gubernatorial politics since Governor James McGreevey through Governors Richard Codey, Jon Corzine, and Chris Christie.
Go to Profile#917
Humphrey Nwosu
#35843
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Professor Humphrey Nwosu . He was chairman of the National Electoral Commission appointed by President Ibrahim Babangida. An office he held from 1989 to 1993. Birth and early career Nwosu was born on 2 October 1941. He became a professor of political science at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He served in the cabinet of Samson Omeruah, governor of the old Anambra State, where he helped traditional rulers to gain staffs of office, receive salaries and settled intra and inter community land disputes. He also served as chairman of a Federal Technical Committee on the application of Civil Service Reforms in the local government service.
Go to Profile#918
Bernard Yack
#18148
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Bernard Yack is a Canadian born American political theorist. He received his B.A. from the University of Toronto and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Harvard University, where he was a student of Judith Shklar. Yack has taught at numerous universities including Princeton University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the author of works of political and social philosophy such as The Problems of a Political Animal, and The Longing for Total Revolution: The Philosophic Sources of Social Discontent from Rousseau to Marx and Nietzsche. His most recent book is titled Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community.
Go to Profile#919
Walter K. Andersen
#34680
Overall Influence
Walter K. Andersen is an American academic known for his studies of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh – a Hindu nationalist organization. He currently serves as Senior Adjunct Professor of South Asia Studies at Johns Hopkins University Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and is a part of the faculty of Tongji University, Shanghai . Previously, he taught comparative politics at the College of Wooster before joining the United States State Department as a political analyst for South Asia specializing in India and Indian Ocean affairs. Additionally, he was an adjunct professor a...
Go to Profile#920
Mike Mansfield
#19089
Overall Influence
1903 - 2001 (98 years)
Michael Joseph Mansfield was an American politician and diplomat. A Democrat, he served as a U.S. representative and a U.S. senator from Montana. He was the longest-serving Senate Majority Leader and served from 1961 to 1977. During his tenure, he shepherded Great Society programs through the Senate.
Go to Profile#921
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
#19934
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
Tun Abdullah bin Ahmad Badawi is a Malaysian politician who served as the fifth Prime Minister of Malaysia from 2003 to 2009. He was also the sixth president of the United Malays National Organisation , the largest political party in Malaysia, and led the governing Barisan Nasional parliamentary coalition. He is informally known as Pak Lah, Pak meaning 'Uncle' or 'Sir', while Lah is taken from his name 'Abdullah'. He was also a Member of Parliament for Kepala Batas for eight consecutive terms, from 1978 to 2013. During the later part of Abdullah's administration, his government faced criti...
Go to Profile#922
Richard N. Gardner
#24387
Overall Influence
1927 - 2019 (92 years)
Richard Newton Gardner was an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Spain and the United States Ambassador to Italy. He was also a professor emeritus of law at Columbia Law School.
Go to Profile#923
Michael Scott Doran
#33250
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Michael Scott Doran is an American analyst of the international politics of the Middle East. He is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. He was previously a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He has been a visiting professor at the Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. Prior to that, he was an assistant professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and taught at the University of Central Florida. He was appointed to the National Security Council and was also deputy assistant secretary for public diplomacy at the U.S.
Go to Profile#924
Fred Greenstein
#16337
Overall Influence
1930 - 2018 (88 years)
Fred Irwin Greenstein was an American political scientist, known for his work on political leadership and the US presidency. Born in the Bronx, New York City, in 1930, Greenstein completed a bachelor's degree at Antioch College in 1953 and a doctorate at Yale University in 1960. He began his teaching career at Yale in 1959, was a professor at Wesleyan University from 1962 to 1973, and then moved to Princeton University, where he served for the rest of his career.
Go to Profile#925
Erna Solberg
#29087
Overall Influence
1961 - Present (63 years)
Erna Solberg is a Norwegian politician and the current Leader of the Opposition. She served as the 35th prime minister of Norway from 2013 to 2021, and has been Leader of the Conservative Party since May 2004.
Go to Profile#926
Ronald J. Pestritto
#19953
Overall Influence
Ronald J. Pestritto is an American academic. He is the Graduate Dean and Professor of Politics at Hillsdale College, and the author of two books and the editor of five more. Early life Ronald J. Pestritto graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a bachelor of arts degree in government in 1990. He earned a PhD in Political Science from the Claremont Graduate University in 1996.
Go to Profile#927
Ludger Kühnhardt
#39794
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Ludger Kühnhardt is a German political scientist, born in Münster. Since 1997 he has been Director at the Center for European Integration Studies , which he helped to found, and Professor of Political Science at Bonn University.
Go to Profile#928
Frank M. Bryan
#49480
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Frank M. Bryan is a retired John G. McCullough Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont. He is a noted local scholar, author and humorist, having written and co-written over ten books and numerous articles.
Go to Profile#929
Sean D. Murphy
#28682
Overall Influence
Sean David Murphy is an American international law scholar currently serving as the Manatt/Ahn Professor of International Law at the George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., where he has been teaching since 1998. His primary areas of scholarly research are public international law, foreign affairs and the Constitution of the United States, international organizations, international dispute settlement, and law of the sea. Murphy served for ten years on the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law and is a former president of the American Society of International Law.
Go to Profile#930
Sergio Aguayo
#35221
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Sergio Aguayo Quezada is a Mexican academic and human rights activist. He has been a professor and researcher for El Colegio de México since 1977, visiting professor at Harvard University since 2015 and a member of the Mexican Researchers National System
Go to Profile#931
David M. Malone
#26376
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
David M. Malone, born in 1954, is a Canadian author on international security and development, as well as a career diplomat. He is a former president of the International Peace Institute, and a frequently quoted expert on international affairs, especially on Indian Foreign Policy and the work of the UN Security Council. He became president of the International Development Research Centre in 2008 and served until 2013. On 1 March 2013, he took up the position of UN Under-Secretary-General, Rector of the United Nations University, which he fulfilled until 28 February 2023.
Go to Profile#932
Christine King Farris
#9694
Overall Influence
1927 - 2023 (96 years)
Willie Christine King Farris was an American teacher and civil rights activist. King was the sister of Martin Luther King Jr. She taught at Spelman College and was the author of several books and was a public speaker on various topics, including the King family, multicultural education, and teaching.
Go to Profile#933
Nizar Qabbani
#5722
Overall Influence
1923 - 1998 (75 years)
Nizar Tawfiq Qabbani was a Syrian diplomat, poet, writer and publisher. He is considered to be Syria's National Poet. His poetic style combines simplicity and elegance in exploring themes of love, eroticism, religion, and Arab empowerment against foreign imperialism and local dictators. Qabbani is one of the most revered contemporary poets in the Arab world.
Go to Profile#934
Ole Holsti
#20581
Overall Influence
1933 - 2020 (87 years)
Olavi Rudolf Holsti was an American political scientist and academic. He held the position of George V. Allen Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Duke University. He was noted for his writings on international affairs, American foreign policy, content analysis, decision-making in politics and diplomacy, and crises.
Go to Profile#935
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph
#45909
Overall Influence
1930 - 2015 (85 years)
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph was an American author, political thinker and educationist. She was a William Benton Distinguished Service Professor Emerita at the University of Chicago and was actively interested in Politics, Political Economy and Political Sociology of South Asia, State Formation, Max Weber and the Politics of Category and Culture. The Government of India, in 2014, honored her, along with her husband, Lloyd I. Rudolph, for their services to literature and education, by bestowing on them the third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan.
Go to Profile#936
Pat Dodson
#25594
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Patrick Lionel Djargun Dodson is an Australian politician and activist. He was appointed as a replacement to fill a casual vacancy in the Australian Senate for Western Australia. He is a member of the Australian Labor Party. He is a Yawuru elder from Broome, Western Australia. He has been chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and a Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. He was briefly a Roman Catholic priest. He was the winner of the 2008 Sydney Peace Prize and the 2009 John Curtin Medallist. He is the brother of Mick Dodson.
Go to Profile#937
Herbert Feith
#45211
Overall Influence
1930 - 2001 (71 years)
Herbert Feith was an Australian academic and world leading scholar of Indonesian politics. Background Born in Vienna, Austria in 1930, Feith witnessed oppression of the Jews and witnessed Kristallnacht in 1938 at the age of 7. He came to Australia as a refugee in 1939 with his Austrian Jewish parents, one of a few thousand Jews granted humanitarian visas. He took an undergraduate degree in political science at the University of Melbourne, working with Professor William Macmahon Ball. After graduating, fascinated with Asia and inspired by Molly Bondan, he got a job in Jakarta in at the Indones...
Go to Profile#938
Peter Mandaville
#11242
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
Peter Mandaville is an American academic and former government official. Biography From 2015-16 he was senior advisor in the Secretary of State's Office of Religion & Global Affairs at the U.S. Department of State. His previous government work has included serving as a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, where he was part of the team that helped to shape the U.S. response to the Arab Spring.
Go to Profile#939
Duncan Snidal
#25299
Overall Influence
1953 - Present (71 years)
Duncan Snidal, FBA is professor of international relations at the University of Oxford and professor emeritus at University of Chicago. Snidal has research interests in international relations theory, institutional organizations, cooperation, international law, and rational choice.
Go to Profile#940
Robert Greenstein
#28500
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Robert Greenstein is founder and former president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities , a Washington, D.C. think tank that focuses on federal and state fiscal policy and public programs that affect low and moderate-income families and individuals. For four decades he was considered the capitol's de facto lobbyist for the poor, where he "won countless fights that cumulatively directed hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars to programs for low-income people."
Go to Profile#941
Stephen Ansolabehere
#41031
Overall Influence
Stephen Daniel Ansolabehere is a professor of government at Harvard University. He is the younger brother of animator Joe Ansolabehere. Education Ansolabehere received his B.A. in political science and B.S. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1984, and his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard in 1989.
Go to Profile#942
Lawrence Mead
#34580
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Lawrence M. Mead III is a professor of politics and public policy at New York University . Education Born in Huntington, New York, Mead graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a B.A. from Amherst College in 1966, and from Harvard University with an M.A. and Ph.D. in 1968 and 1973.
Go to Profile#943
Ian Shapiro
#21595
Overall Influence
1956 - Present (68 years)
Ian Shapiro is an American legal scholar and political scientist who serves as the Sterling Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He served as the Henry R. Luce Director of the MacMillan Center at Yale University from 2004 to 2019. He is known primarily for interventions in debates on democracy and on methods of conducting social science research.
Go to Profile#944
Beatriz Magaloni
#16699
Overall Influence
Beatriz Magaloni is a political scientist. She is the Graham H. Stuart Professor of International Relations, Professor of Political Science, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Since 2021, Magaloni is also a Non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Go to Profile#945
Kent John Chabotar
#36965
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Kent John Chabotar is an American political scientist and academic administrator. He was a professor of political science and president of Guilford College from 2002 to 2014. Biography Education Chabotar was born in New York City. He graduated magna cum laude from Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pa., in 1968 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science. He served two terms as student government president. He earned a master of public administration degree with distinction and doctor of philosophy degree in public administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public ...
Go to Profile#946
E. Pendleton Herring
#48809
Overall Influence
1903 - 2004 (101 years)
E. Pendleton Herring was an American political scientist who worked to advance the field of political science with his work as president of the American Political Science Association . In addition to working as the 48th president of the APSA Pendleton Herring also served as secretary of Graduate education for Public Administration at Harvard. Pendleton's scholarly works had a large impact on American political science and also influenced the American government acting as chief intellectual architect of the National Security Act of 1947, which culminated in the reorganization of the military a...
Go to Profile#947
Harold Crouch
#21662
Overall Influence
1940 - Present (84 years)
Harold Arthur Crouch was an Australian political science scholar and author. He had been described as "one of the pre-eminent scholars of Indonesian politics." Most of his books were published under "Harold Crouch".
Go to Profile#948
Giovanni Orsina
#29239
Overall Influence
1967 - Present (57 years)
Giovanni Orsina is a full professor of Contemporary History at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome. His main fields of research and teaching are the history of political parties, comparative history of European political systems and the history of journalism. For the academic year 2008/2009 he was director of the new Master in European Studies programme.
Go to Profile#949
James Goldgeier
#48786
Overall Influence
James M. Goldgeier is a professor of international relations at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C., where he served as dean from 2011 to 2017. He was previously a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. from 2004 to 2011, an associate professor of political science and international affairs from 1998 to 2004, and assistant professor of political science and international affairs from 1994 to 1998. While at George Washington University, he served as director of the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies from 2001 to 2005 and was its acting director from 1999 to 2000.
Go to Profile#950
Kenneth A. Oye
#34690
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Kenneth Akito Oye is an American political scientist and Professor of Political Science and Data Systems and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is Director of the MIT Program on Emerging Technologies and former Director of the MIT Center for International Studies.
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