Search People Result | Academic Influence

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.

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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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School

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Political Science,

#1051

Charles Wheelan

Charles Wheelan

#21633

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

Charles J. Wheelan is an American professor, journalist, speaker, and is the founder and co-chairman of Unite America. Wheelan is the author of Naked Statistics, Naked Economics, and Naked Money. He was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate in the special election for Illinois's 5th congressional district, the seat vacated by Rahm Emanuel.

#1052

Stephen Peter Rosen

#28582

Overall Influence

Stephen Peter Rosen is a Harvard College Professor and Beton Michael Kaneb Professor of National Security and Military Affairs in the Government Department in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University and is known as a neoconservative. In addition to his academic work, Rosen was also Master of Harvard College's Winthrop House from 2003 to 2009. He is also Senior Counsellor to the Long Term Strategy Group based in Washington D. C., a defense consulting firm.

#1053

Gavan McCormack

#18745

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Gavan McCormack is a researcher specializing in East Asia who is Emeritus Professor and Visiting Fellow, Division of Pacific and Asian History of the Australian National University. He is also a coordinator of an award-winning open access journal The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus.

#1054

Jan Peter Balkenende

#21113

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Jan Pieter "Jan Peter" Balkenende Jr. is a Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal party and jurist who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 22 July 2002 to 14 October 2010.

#1055

Roman Popadiuk

#30343

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Roman Popadiuk is an American diplomat of Ukrainian descent. Popadiuk served as the first United States Ambassador to Ukraine under George H. W. Bush, from 1992 to 1993. From 2015 until 2017, he was a principal at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP's subsidiary Morgan Lewis Consulting, and prior to 2015 he was the principal at Bingham Consulting. Since late 2018 Popadiuk has been the president of the Diplomacy Center Foundation which oversees the development of the National Museum of American Diplomacy.

#1056

Sharon Nazarian

#38928

Overall Influence

Sharon Nazarian is an Iranian-born American social activist, academic and philanthropist. She is currently the Senior Vice President, International Affairs for the Anti-Defamation League. Early life Sharon Nazarian was born in Tehran, Iran. Her father, Younes Nazarian, was a businessman, philanthropist, and an early investor in the satellite technology company Qualcomm. Her mother, Soraya Nazarian, is a sculptor. She has two brothers, Sam Nazarian, David Nazarian, and a sister, Shulamit Nazarian. During the Iranian Revolution of 1979, she immigrated to the United States, settling in Beverly Hi...

#1057

Janne E. Nolan

#47392

Overall Influence

1951 - 2019 (68 years)

Janne E. Nolan was an American academic, foreign policy advisor, and expert on nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. She held senior positions in the Department of State, as a staffer for the Senate, and served on multiple blue ribbon commissions. She was well known for supporting generations of women in the traditionally male dominated field of nuclear security.

#1058

Steven Muller

#25649

Overall Influence

1927 - 2013 (86 years)

Steven Muller was a German-American professor of political science, author, and the president of the Johns Hopkins University, serving from 1972 to 1990. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, the son of Marianne and Werner A. Muller. His father was Jewish, and, as the Nazis rose to power in Germany, the family suffered increasing persecution. During Kristallnacht in 1938, his father was arrested by the Nazis. Thanks to influential friends, he was released after a short time, but this experience convinced him that he and his family had to leave Germany. His father left first, followed by the rest of the family shortly before the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.

#1059

Andrew Koppelman

#17681

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Andrew Koppelman is the John Paul Stevens Professor of Law and professor of political science at Northwestern University. He is the recipient of the 2015 Walder Award for Research Excellence. The main focus of his research is on the intersection of law and political philosophy.

#1060

David L. Downie

#17384

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

David Leonard Downie is an American scholar focusing on international environmental politics and policy. He currently writes and teaches at Fairfield University. Research and writings Downie's research focuses on factors that can promote or impede the creation, implementation and effectiveness of international environmental policy. This includes frameworks of scientific knowledge, patterns of economic interests, extant institutions and regime development as well as obstacles that stem from: the structures and interaction of the international political, legal, ecological and economic systems; ...

#1061

Mitchel B. Wallerstein

#48127

Overall Influence

Mitchel B. Wallerstein is an American educator, philanthropist, policy expert, and former official of the federal government of the United States. He is the President Emeritus of Baruch College of the City University of New York and is currently appointed as a University Professor, teaching courses on international security and public policy. In 2021, he was also appointed as a Non-resident Senior Fellow on U.S. Foreign Policy at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. From 2003 to 2010, Wallerstein served as dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, ranked as the nation's leading school of public and international affairs.

#1062

Carol Anderson

#30161

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Carol Elaine Anderson is an American academic. She is the Charles Howard Candler professor of African American Studies at Emory University. Her research focuses on public policy with regard to race, justice, and equality.

#1063

Robert Wade

#27184

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Robert Hunter Wade is a political economy and development scholar. He has been Professor of Global Political Economy at the Department of International Development, London School of Economics since 1999.

#1064

Abraham David Sofaer

#22071

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Abraham David Sofaer is an American attorney and jurist who served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and legal adviser to the United States State Department. After resigning from the State Department, he became the George P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy and National Security Affairs at the Hoover Institution.

#1065

Peter M. Haas

#35116

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Peter M. Haas is a professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the Karl Deutsch Visiting Professor at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin. His research concerns epistemic communities, global environmental politics, multilevel governance, and the role of science in global politics.

#1066

Maurice Halperin

#35125

Overall Influence

1906 - 1995 (89 years)

Maurice Hyman Halperin was an American writer, professor, diplomat, and accused Soviet spy . Biography Maurice Hyman Halperin was born on March 3, 1906, in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1927, he received an A.B. from Harvard College, in 1939 an MA from the University of Oklahoma, and in 1931 a doctorate from the Sorbonne.

#1067

Colin Hughes

#37627

Overall Influence

1930 - 2017 (87 years)

Colin Anfield Hughes was a distinguished British-Australian academic specialising in electoral politics and government. He was Emeritus professor of political science at the University of Queensland, and chairman of the Queensland Constitutional Review Commission .

#1068

Celeste A. Wallander

Celeste A. Wallander

#45784

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Celeste Ann Wallander is an American international relations advisor who currently serves as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs at the United States Department of Defense.

#1069

Arthur Waldron

#33281

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Arthur Waldron is an American historian. Since 1997, Waldron has been the Lauder Professor of International Relations in the department of history at the University of Pennsylvania. He works chiefly on Asia, China in particular, often with a focus on the origins and development of nationalism, and the study of war and violence in general.

#1070

Sergey Karaganov

#33295

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Sergey Alexandrovich Karaganov is a Russian political scientist who heads the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy, a security analytical institution founded by Vitaly Shlykov. He is also the dean of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at Moscow's Higher School of Economics. Karaganov was a close associate of Yevgeny Primakov, and has been Presidential Advisor to both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. He is considered close to Putin and Sergey Lavrov.

#1071

Chris Kenny

#26058

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Chris Kenny is an Australian conservative political commentator, author and former political adviser. He is a columnist for The Australian newspaper as well as the host of a weeknight current affairs program, The Kenny Report on Sky News Australia.

#1072

Alan Dowty

#29169

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Alan Dowty is an American author, historian and professor of international relations and political science emeritus, University of Notre Dame. He was formerly on the faculty of the Hebrew University , 1964–1975, Kahanoff Chair Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Calgary, 2003–2006, and President of the Association for Israel Studies, 2005–2007. In 2017 he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in Israel Studies by the Association for Israel Studies and the Israel Institute.

#1073

Jeffrey Bergner

Jeffrey Bergner

#42552

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Jeffrey Thomas Bergner is an American foreign policy expert. He is a visiting lecturer at the Batten School of Public Policy and Leadership at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Origin of Formalism in Social Science, The New Superpowers, Against Modern Humanism, The Vanishing Congress, and Turning Point: Judaism, Christianity and Islam Confront Greek Philosophy. He is also co-author of Branding the Candidate and several other books concerning American politics and foreign affairs.

#1074

Adam Swift

#22415

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Adam Swift is a British political philosopher and sociologist who specialises in debates surrounding liberal egalitarianism. He has published books on communitarianism, on the philosophical aspects of school choice, on social justice, on the ethics of the family, and on how to make education policy, as well as an introduction to contemporary political philosophy.

#1075

Stathis Kalyvas

#37810

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Stathis N. Kalyvas is a Greek political scientist who is the Gladstone Professor of Government, at the University of Oxford and a University Academic Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. He has held professorial positions at Yale University , as well as the University of Chicago, New York University, and Ohio State University. He has also conducted research at the Peace Research Institute Oslo. Kalyvas has written extensively on civil wars, ethnicity, and political violence. He wrote The Logic of Violence in Civil War.

#1076

Richard Butler

#33753

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Richard William Butler, is a retired Australian public servant, United Nations weapons inspector, and a former Governor of Tasmania. Early life and career Butler was born in Coolah in rural New South Wales. He grew up in Sydney and was educated at Randwick Boys High School, the University of Sydney and the Australian National University, Canberra. He married Susan Ryan in 1963 and they had a son and a daughter; they divorced in 1972.

#1077

Kathryn M. Dominguez

Kathryn M. Dominguez

#39093

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Kathryn Mary Elizabeth Dominguez is a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Michigan and is a former nominee for the Governor of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. Early life and education Dominguez was born on November 26, 1960, in Los Angeles, California. She received her Artium Baccalaureus degree in 1982 from Vassar College. She received a Doctor of Philosophy in Economics in 1987 from Yale University. Prior to attaining her Ph.D., she served on the research staff of the Fiscal Analysis Division of the Congressional Budget Office during the summer of 1984 and as a ...

#1078

Mary Jo Bane

#33628

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Mary Jo Bane is an American political scientist who focuses on children and welfare. She is currently the Thornton Bradshaw Professor at Harvard Kennedy School, and formerly the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy.

#1079

James Tully

#13762

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

James Hamilton Tully is a Canadian philosopher who is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Law, Indigenous Governance and Philosophy at the University of Victoria, Canada. Tully is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Emeritus Fellow of the Trudeau Foundation.

#1080

Ichirō Fujisaki

Ichirō Fujisaki

#15126

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

was Japanese Ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2012. He was previously the Japanese Ambassador to the United Nations and to the World Trade Organization. Fujisaki attended junior high school in Seattle, Washington as an exchange student in the 1960s. Fujisaki entered the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1969. Over the course of his diplomatic career, Fujisaki served as director-general of the North American Affairs Bureau in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and as Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and overseas in Jakarta, London, and Paris. In his capacity as Deputy Foreign...

#1081

Claes G. Ryn

#12273

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Claes Gösta Ryn is an American conservative academic and educator, who hails from Sweden. Background Ryn was born and raised in Norrköping in Sweden. He attended the Latin Gymnasium, Norrköpings Högre Allmänna Läroverk' . He did military service in the Royal Life Company at the I 4 Regiment in Linkoping and the Signal Corps at the S 1 Regiment in Uppsala. He was an undergraduate and a doctoral student at Uppsala University. He did further doctoral study at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, United States, .

#1082

Fernando Haddad

#24736

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Fernando Haddad is a Brazilian scholar, lawyer and politician who has served as the Brazilian Minister of Finance since 1 January 2023. He was previously the mayor of São Paulo from 2013 to 2017 and the Brazilian minister of education from 2005 to 2012.

#1083

Helga Hernes

#21739

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Helga Marie Hernes is a German-born Norwegian political scientist, diplomat, and politician for the Labour Party. Educated in the United States, she moved to Norway following her marriage to Norwegian sociologist and politician Gudmund Hernes whom she met during her studies. She was on faculty at the at the University of Bergen from 1970 to 1980 and subsequently held a number of positions in research management. Her research during the 1970s and 1980s focused on international politics, women's studies and the welfare state, and she is well known for her concept of state feminism, articulated in 1987.

#1084

David Beetham

#34765

Overall Influence

1938 - 2022 (84 years)

David Beetham was a social theorist who made extensive contributions in the fields of democracy and human rights who was Professor of Politics at the University of Leeds. Early life and education Beetham was born in Keighley in the West Riding of Yorkshire and grew up in Birkenhead, then in Cheshire. He was the second of three sons of Tom Beetham, a Methodist minister, and his wife Elain . He attended Kingswood School in Bath and gained a scholarship to study at Merton College, Oxford.

#1085

Colin Talbot

#41420

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Colin Ronald Talbot is a British political scientist. He was until August 2017 a professor at the University of Manchester and held the Chair of Government in the School of Social Sciences. He is now Professor Emeritus at Manchester and a research associate at the University of Cambridge. He has also been an adviser to UK Parliamentary Committees on HM Treasury and on Public Administration.

#1086

James Morone

#38741

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

James Morone is an American political scientist and author, noted for his work on health politics and policy and on popular participation and morality in American politics and political development.

#1087

Doris Graber

#27429

Overall Influence

1923 - 2018 (95 years)

Doris Appel Graber was an American political scientist. Doris Appel was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on 11 November 1923, to Ernst and Marta Appel. She had a sister, Ruth. Doris Appel earned bachelor's and master's degrees in political science from the Washington University in St. Louis, and completed a doctorate at Columbia University in 1949. She studied international law and relations and her dissertation was titled, The Development of the Law of Belligerent Occupation: 1863-1914, A Historical Survey. She taught at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago and North Park College, prior to accepting a position as lecturer at University of Illinois at Chicago in 1963.

#1088

Teija Tiilikainen

Teija Tiilikainen

#57364

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Teija Helena Tiilikainen is a Finnish political scientist. She has been the Director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, Secretary of State at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, and a vice-chairperson of the executive board of the University of Helsinki. In August 2019 she was elected Director of the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. Her research focuses on European integration and European security policy.

#1089

Brooke Ackerly

#44331

Overall Influence

Brooke A. Ackerly is an American political scientist and Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University with affiliations to the Human and Organizational Development Department, Law School, Philosophy Department, and Women's and Gender Studies Program, noted for her research on grounded normative theory, feminist theory, feminist international relations, and scholar activism.

#1090

Tom Axworthy

#15466

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Thomas Sidney Axworthy, is a Canadian civil servant, political strategist, writer and professor. He is best known for having served as Principal Secretary and Chief Speechwriter to Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Axworthy is currently the Secretary General of the InterAction Council. Previously, he was president and CEO of the Walter and Duncan Gordan Foundation. He is a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs, Massey College, and the Bill Graham Centre of Contemporary International History, Trinity College, at the University of Toronto.

#1091

Paul O. Carrese

Paul O. Carrese

#30525

Overall Influence

Paul O. Carrese is Director of the School of Civic & Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University. For nearly two decades he was a professor of political science at the United States Air Force Academy. He is author of the book The Cloaking of Power: Montesquieu, Blackstone, and the Rise of Judicial Activism and co-editor of three other books. His most recent book is Democracy in Moderation: Montesquieu, Tocqueville, and Sustainable Liberalism . He has held fellowships at Harvard University; the University of Delhi ; and the James Madison Program, Politics Department, Princeton University.

#1092

Jay Blumler

#12861

Overall Influence

1924 - 2021 (97 years)

Jay G Blumler was an American-British theorist of communication and media. He was Professor of Public Communication at the University of Leeds. Early life and education Blumler was born in New York, New York on 18 February 1924. Blumler's father was a Marxist and his mother a supporter of Roosevelt's New Deal. He described himself as a "red diaper baby".

#1093

Judith Wright

#12222

Overall Influence

1915 - 2000 (85 years)

Judith Arundell Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award. Biography Judith Wright was born in Armidale, New South Wales. The eldest child of Phillip Wright and his first wife, Ethel, she spent most of her formative years in Brisbane and Sydney. Wright was of Cornish ancestry. Following the early death of her mother, she lived with her aunt and then boarded at New England Girls' School after her father's remarriage in 1929. After graduating, Wright studied philosophy, English, psychology and history at the University of Sydney.

#1094

Michael D. Higgins

#21028

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Michael Daniel Higgins is an Irish politician, poet, broadcaster and sociologist who has served as the ninth president of Ireland since 2011. Entering national politics through the Labour Party, he served as a senator from 1973 to 1977 having been nominated by the Taoiseach. Elected in 1981 as a Teachta Dála , he represented the Galway West constituency from 1981 to 1982 and 1987 to 2011. Between these terms, he returned to Seanad Éireann from 1983 to 1987 as a senator for the National University. He served as minister for arts, culture and the Gaeltacht from 1993 to 1997 and mayor of Galway from 1981 to 1982 and 1990 to 1991.

#1095

Ronald Tiersky

#24840

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Ronald Tiersky is the Joseph B. Eastman Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts. Career Tiersky taught political science and European Studies at Amherst for four decades. During 1980-82 he was Director of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies center in Bologna, Italy. He was associated over the years with the Paris Centre d’études des relations internationales .

#1096

Paul Y. Hammond

#25799

Overall Influence

1929 - 2012 (83 years)

Paul Young Hammond was an American foreign policy and security studies scholar. He was Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs from 1983 on; before that he was the Edward R. Weidlein Professor of environmental and public policy studies beginning in 1976 at the University of Pittsburgh. Before that he was senior social scientist at the RAND Corporation from 1964–76, including being head of the social science department and also being program director for strategic studies and Asian studies during 1973-76. His caree...

#1097

Tom Switzer

#36722

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Tom Switzer is the executive director of the Centre for Independent Studies, a Sydney-based libertarian public-policy research think tank that focuses on classical liberal issues. He is also the host of Between the Lines on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Radio National and a columnist at the Sydney Morning Herald and Australian Financial Review.

#1098

Annette Lu

#32807

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Annette Lu Hsiu-lien is a Taiwanese politician. A feminist active in the tangwai movement, she joined the Democratic Progressive Party in 1990, and was elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1992. Subsequently, she served as Taoyuan County Magistrate between 1997 and 2000, and was the Vice President of the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008, under President Chen Shui-bian. Lu announced her intentions to run for the presidency on 6 March 2007, but withdrew to support eventual DPP nominee Frank Hsieh. Lu ran again in 2012, but withdrew for a second time, ceding the nomination to DPP chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen.

#1099

Devesh Kapur

#42112

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Devesh Kapur is the Director of Asia Programs and Starr Foundation Professor of South Asian Studies at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies . Formerly, he was the director at the Center for the Advanced Study of India, Madan Lal Sobti Associate Professor for the Study of Contemporary India, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a non-resident fellow at the Center for Global Development. He is also a monthly contributor to Business Standard, an Indian business news daily, and an occasional contributor to Project Syndi...

#1100

Anthony Clark Arend

#23710

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Anthony Clark Arend is an American academic on international laws and politics. He is currently the Professor of Government and Foreign Service and has been Chair of the Department of Government at Georgetown University since June 2020.

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