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.

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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Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Political Science,

#2151

James Lee Perry

#109901

Overall Influence

#2152

John Sidel

#87209

Overall Influence

1966 - Present (58 years)

John Thayer Sidel is a political scientist and is the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics , where he is affiliated with both the Department of Government and International Relations department, as well as the Asia Research Centre.

#2153

Michael D. Ward

#95498

Overall Influence

1948 - 2021 (73 years)

Michael Don Ward was an American political scientist and academic. He was professor emeritus of political science at Duke University, an affiliate of the Duke Network Analysis Center, and the principal investigator at Ward Lab, a website that creates conflict predictions using Bayesian modeling and network analysis. He is the founder of Predictive Heuristics, a consultancy that does risk analysis for a variety of clients.

#2154

Marc Weller

#68480

Overall Influence

Marc Weller is Professor of International Law and International Constitutional Studies at Cambridge University, England, and a fellow of Hughes Hall, Cambridge working in its Department of Politics and International Studies . He was the Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. He has been an adviser in many international peace negotiations.

#2155

Demetrios James Caraley

#87103

Overall Influence

1932 - 2020 (88 years)

Demetrios "Jim" Caraley was editor of Political Science Quarterly and President Emeritus of The Academy of Political Science. Before retiring in 2004, he was Janet Robb Professor of the Social Science at Barnard College and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

#2156

Ulrich Menzel

#91726

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Ulrich Menzel is a German political scientist. Biography Menzel attended the Humboldt-Gymnasium Düsseldorf until his Abitur in 1967. He studied political science, history, philosophy, sociology and German studies in Düsseldorf, Cologne and Frankfurt am Main from 1969 to 1974. In 1978 he received his doctorate in Frankfurt with a dissertation on The Chinese Development Model in Theory and Practice under Dieter Senghaas. In 1982 he habilitated in political science, also in Frankfurt, with a thesis on Autocentric Development despite World Market Integration.

#2157

Eric Schickler

#65949

Overall Influence

1969 - Present (55 years)

Eric Schickler is an American political scientist, currently the Jeffrey & Ashley McDermott Endowed Chair at University of California, Berkeley and an Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

#2158

Haydon Manning

#45225

Overall Influence

Haydon Manning is an Australian political scientist and Adjunct Professor with the College of Business, Government and Law at The Flinders University of South Australia. Early life and education Manning is the son of historian Geoff Manning, born 1958.

#2159

Neil Malhotra

#83564

Overall Influence

Neil Malhotra is an American political economist. He is the Edith M. Cornell Professor of Political Economy in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University, where he is also the Louise and Claude N. Rosenbrg, Jr. Director of the Center for Social Innovation. He studies the politics of the United States, survey methodology, and voter behavior in elections, including work on retrospective voting and disaster preparedness and relief politics.

#2160

Suraiya Faroqhi

Suraiya Faroqhi

#41558

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Suraiya N. Faroqhi , is a German scholar, Ottoman historian and a leading authority on Ottoman history. She was elected as a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy for the year 2022, under the "Early Modern History to 1850" category.

#2161

Paul D'Anieri

#71925

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Paul J. D'Anieri is Professor of Public Policy and Political Science and former Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost of University of California, Riverside. Prior to his position at UCR, Dr. D'Anieri served as the dean of the University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences , from July 2008-June 2014 and the associate dean for humanities from 2004 to 2008 and associate dean for international programs from 1999 to 2003 at the University of Kansas.

#2162

Donna Robinson Divine

#49057

Overall Influence

1941 - Present (83 years)

Donna Robinson Divine is the Morningstar Family Professor in Jewish Studies and Professor of Government at Smith College. She holds a B.A. from Brandeis University, 1963, and a Ph.D. from Columbia University, 1971, in Political Science. Divine has worked in the fields of Comparative Politics, Middle Eastern Politics, and Political Theory.

#2163

Jacob T. Levy

#65675

Overall Influence

1971 - Present (53 years)

Jacob T. Levy is an American political theorist and Tomlinson Professor of Political Theory at McGill University. Levy is the Chair of the Department of Political Science at McGill, as well as the coordinator of McGill's Research Group on Constitutional Studies and the founding director of McGill's Yan P. Lin Centre for the Study of Freedom and Global Orders in the Ancient and Modern Worlds. Levy is also a Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center and the Institute for Humane Studies. He is known for his expertise on multiculturalism, liberalism, and pluralism.

#2164

Norman Wengert

#63633

Overall Influence

1916 - 2001 (85 years)

Norman Irving Wengert was an American political scientist who wrote about the politics of natural resources, advanced a seminal theory of the "politics of getting", and had a number of significant roles in his public and academic career. He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to Eugene F. and Lydia Semmann Wengert. He pioneered the revival of the study of political economy in the United States with publication of Natural Resources and the Political Struggle, and later authored more than fifty monographs and studies on the political economy and public administration of environmental resources. Hi...

#2165

Martin Kilson

#76739

Overall Influence

1931 - 2019 (88 years)

Martin Luther Kilson Jr. was an American political scientist. He was the first black academic to be appointed a full professor at Harvard University, where he was later the Frank G. Thomson Professor of Government from 1988 until his retirement in 1999.

#2166

Tommy Möller

#90131

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Tommy Möller is a Swedish professor of Political science at Stockholm University, and a frequent conservative political commentator in the Swedish media. Möller received his PhD from Uppsala University in 1986. Tommy Möller has been recognized for his work on Swedish elections and political parties.

#2167

Lorella Cedroni

Lorella Cedroni

#60043

Overall Influence

1961 - 2013 (52 years)

Lorella Cedroni was a political philosopher. Cedroni studied political science and philosophy , receiving a Ph.D. in Political and Social Sciences . She has taught and lectured in many European and American universities, and mainly at Sapienza University of Rome.

#2168

Carlos Montemayor

Carlos Montemayor

#32700

Overall Influence

1947 - 2010 (63 years)

Carlos Montemayor was a Mexican novelist, poet, essayist, literary critic, tenor, political analyst, and promoter of contemporary literature written in indigenous languages. He was a Member of the Mexican Academy of the Language.

#2169

Ejup Ganić

#72669

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Ejup Ganić is a Bosnian engineer and politician who is the founder and chancellor of Sarajevo School of Science and Technology. He served one term as President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1997 to 2001. He holds a ScD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

#2170

Eric Hooglund

#28157

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Eric James Hooglund is an American political scientist and an expert on contemporary Iran. Since 2010 he has been a senior research professor at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Lund University in Sweden.

#2171

Hans de Bruijn

#70043

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Johan Adam de Bruijn is a Dutch political scientist and Professor of Public Administration at Delft University of Technology, known by his work in the field of process management. Life and work Born in Gouda, De Bruijn studied law at Leiden University from 1980 to 1986 and obtained his MA of Dutch Law and his MA of Political Science. In 1986 he started as a PhD student at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and in 1990 obtained his PhD with thesis, entitled "Economische zaken en economische subsidies: een instrumentele en organisatorische analyse van de toepassing van economische subsidies" .

#2172

Judith Kelley

#66575

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Judith Green Kelley is a Danish-born American political scientist. Judith Green Kelley is Kevin D. Gorter Professor of Public Policy and Political Science and, since January 2018, Dean of the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She received her BA from Stanford University in 1995, her MPP in Public Policy from Harvard University Kennedy School of Government in 1997, and her Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard University in 2001. She studies democracy promotion, human rights, and international influences on domestic politics. She is well known for her early work on conditionali...

#2173

Gavin Kitching

#14648

Overall Influence

Gavin Kitching is a British author and professor of social sciences and international relations at the University of New South Wales, where he has taught since 1991. In 2007 Kitching became a fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

#2174

David M. Robinson

#78334

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

David M. Robinson is an American historian. He earned a bachelor's degree from Hobart College and completed graduate studies at Princeton University. He teaches at Colgate University as the Robert H.N. Ho Professor in Asian Studies.

#2175

Marion Maddox

#23454

Overall Influence

Marion Maddox is an Australian author, academic and political commentator. She is a professor in the department of Modern History, Politics and International Relations at Macquarie University. Maddox is a regular commentator on issues of religion and politics in the Australian media and is a member of the Uniting Church. She authored the book God Under Howard: The rise of the religious right in Australian politics which compared the Howard Government with the religious right in the United States and criticised the decline of mainstream Christianity in Australia.

#2176

Donald Shaw

#35984

Overall Influence

1930 - 2017 (87 years)

Donald Leslie Shaw was a writer, literary critic, and the Brown-Forman Professor of Latin American Literature at the University of Virginia. He graduated from the University of Manchester and Trinity College Dublin . Shaw resided in Italy and would spend each academic semester in Charlottesville, Virginia.

#2177

Dov Waxman

#72429

Overall Influence

Dov Waxman is an author, academic and commentator. He is the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor of Israel Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles , and the director of the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies. Waxman is an internationally recognized expert on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, Jewish–Arab relations in Israel, Israeli politics and foreign policy, Israel–United States relations, American Jewry’s relationship with Israel, Jewish politics, and contemporary Antisemitism.

#2178

Jason Johnson

#28858

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Jason Johnson is an American political scientist, commentator and writer. He is the author of the book Political Consultants and Campaigns: One Day to Sell. Johnson is an associate professor of communication and journalism at Morgan State University. He is a regular political contributor to MSNBC and CNN.

#2179

William N. Dunn

#104284

Overall Influence

1938 - 2022 (84 years)

William N. Dunn was an American scholar and professor of international relations at University of Pittsburgh. He is known for his research on public policy and public administration. Dunn was a recipient of Aaron Wildavsky Award and Jeffrey Pressman Award from Policy Studies Organization.

#2180

Ralph P. Hummel

#83967

Overall Influence

1937 - 2012 (75 years)

Ralph P. Hummel was a professor of public administration at the University of Akron and a founding fellow of the Institute of Applied Phenomenology in Science and Technology. He is best known for his book The Bureaucratic Experience.

#2181

Matthew Mendelsohn

Matthew Mendelsohn

#91081

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Matthew Mendelsohn is a Canadian public policy expert and public sector executive, best known for leading Prime Minister’s Justin Trudeau’s Results & Delivery Unit and the Government of Canada’s Impact & Innovation Unit from 2016-2020. These followed his role as a chief architect of the Liberals’ 2015 election platform and serving as a member of incoming Prime Minister Trudeau’s transition team, helping with cabinet selection and penning open and public Ministerial mandate letters.

#2182

Walter Z. Laqueur

#110973

Overall Influence

#2183

Jonathan Pool

#28143

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Jonathan Pool, born 1942 in Chicago, is a political scientist from the United States. He works on the political and economic consequences of linguistic circumstances and language policy. Pool studied political science in Harvard between 1960 and 1964. He then joined the Peace Corps and went to Turkey, where he taught English. After his return he studied in Chicago, where he graduated in 1968 and earned his PhD in 1971.

#2184

Roy Godson

#69565

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Roy Godson is an academic and scholar within the fields of international politics and national security, and a professor emeritus at Georgetown University. Education Godson graduated with a PhD from Columbia University, with a focus on international politics and national security.

#2185

Selma James

#21267

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Selma James is an American writer, and feminist and social activist who is co-author of the women's movement book The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community , co-founder of the International Wages for Housework Campaign, and coordinator of the Global Women's Strike.

#2186

Sebastian Harnisch

#101046

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Sebastian Harnisch is Professor of International Relations and Foreign Policy at the Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences of the University of Heidelberg. Education 2004 Habilitation , University of Trier1998 Dr. Phil. , University of Trier1993 M.A. , University of Trier1990–1991 Graduate Studies , Georgetown University, Washington DC, Exchange Year

#2187

Shirin M. Rai

#59508

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Shirin M. Rai , is an interdisciplinary scholar who works across the political science and international relations boundaries. She is known for her research on the intersections between international political economy, globalisation, post-colonial governance, institutions and processes of democratisation and gender regimes. She was a professor of politics and international studies at the University of Warwick, and is the founding director of Warwick Interdisciplinary Research Centre for International Development .

#2188

Ilan Berman

#51541

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Ilan I. Berman is an American lawyer and policy analyst. He is the Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council. He focuses on regional security in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Russian Federation.

#2189

Kelly D. Patterson

#111215

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Kelly D. Patterson is a professor of political science at Brigham Young University and a senior research fellow with the Center for the Study of Elections Democracy at that school. Patterson has a bachelor's and master's degree from BYU. He also has a Ph.D. from Columbia University. From 1988 until 1993 Patterson taught at Franklin and Marshall College. In 1993 Patterson returned to BYU as a professor.

#2190

Marie R. Griffin

#108300

Overall Influence

Marie R. Griffin is an American vaccine researcher. She is a Professor of Medicine and holds the Endowed Directorship in Public Health Research and Education at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Early life and education Griffin earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Immaculata University, her medical degree from Georgetown University School of Medicine, and Master's in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.

#2191

Jill Manthorpe

#111258

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

#2192

Miloš Jovanović

Miloš Jovanović

#40846

Overall Influence

1976 - Present (48 years)

Miloš Jovanović is a Serbian politician, lawyer, and a political scientist. He has been the president of the New Democratic Party of Serbia, formerly known as the Democratic Party of Serbia, since 2017, previously serving that role in acting capacity from late 2016 until his election as president in 2017. He is a docent at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade. Jovanović was a presidential candidate in the 2022 election, in which he placed third with 6% of popular vote.

#2193

Michael Harris

#35731

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Michael Harris is an Israeli-American public policy scholar and university administrator. He is currently the Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs of Tennessee State University and a Professor of Public Administration and Policy.

#2194

Matthew Søberg Shugart

#103690

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Matthew Søberg Shugart is an American political scientist. He is a Distinguished Professor of political science at the University of California, Davis. He is also an Affiliated Professor at the University of Haifa. Shugart specializes in electoral systems, party systems, and the design of political institutions, primarily through empirical studies of political systems across large numbers of countries. Shugart is also an orchardist, and runs the Fruits and Votes blog on electoral systems and fruit growing.

#2195

Claudia Sheinbaum

#62186

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo is a Mexican politician, scientist, and academic. Sheinbaum served as Head of Government of Mexico City, a position equivalent to that of a state governor, from 2018 to 2023. Elected as the candidate of the leftist Juntos Haremos Historia coalition, she was both the first woman and first Jewish person to be elected to the position. She is a candidate for President of Mexico in the 2024 Mexican general election.

#2196

Walter Mebane

#31675

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Walter Richard Mebane, Jr. is a University of Michigan professor of political science and statistics and an expert on detecting electoral fraud. He has authored numerous articles on potentially fraudulent election results, including a series of notes on the results of the Iranian presidential election, 2009. He authored a paper disputing the Organization of American States's claim of fraud in the 2019 Bolivian general election as well.

#2197

Alan Johnson

#70306

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Alan Johnson is a British political theorist and activist. He is a senior research fellow at the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre. Previously he was Professor of Democratic Theory and Practice at Edge Hill University.

#2198

Michael Czinkota

Michael Czinkota

#33660

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Michael R. Czinkota is an American organizational theorist and Professor at the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. Czinkota is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Commerce in the United States Department of Commerce and a former head of U.S. delegation for Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Industry Committee in Paris . From 1986-1987, Czinkota was a Senior Advisor for Export Controls in the U.S. Department of Commerce. Czinkota was awarded the Significant Contribution to Global Marketing award from the American Marketing Association in 2007.

#2199

Nick Butler

#43503

Overall Influence

Nick Butler is a visiting professor at King's College London and the founding chairman of the Kings Policy Institute. He chairs Promus Associates, The Sure Chill Company. From 2007 to 2009 he was chairman of the Cambridge Centre for Energy Studies. He was a special adviser to the former British prime minister Gordon Brown from 2009 to 2010.

#2200

Virginia Eubanks

#82742

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Virginia Eubanks is an American political scientist, professor, and author studying technology and social justice. She is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the University at Albany, SUNY. Previously Eubanks was a Fellow at New America researching digital privacy, economic inequality, and data-based discrimination.

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