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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School

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Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Political Science,

#2451

Eugénie Mérieau

#66415

Overall Influence

1986 - Present (38 years)

Eugénie Mérieau is a French political scientist and constitutionalist, specialising in politics of Thailand, authoritarian constitutionalism and legal transplants. She is an associate professor of Public Law at the Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University.

#2452

Gregory Shaffer

#59916

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Gregory Shaffer is the Chancellor's Professor of Law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, and President-Elect of the American Society of International Law. He is known for his work on international law, with a specialization on international trade law, and law and globalization.

#2453

Vincent Phillip Muñoz

#77312

Overall Influence

Vincent Phillip Muñoz is an American political scientist. He is the Tocqueville Professor in the Department of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of two books on the principles of the American Founding focusing on religious liberty and the separation of church and state in the United States.

#2454

Eric Holt Giménez

#76915

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Eric Holt Giménez is an agroecologist, political economist, lecturer and author. From 1975 to 2002 he worked in Mexico, Central America and South Africa in sustainable agricultural development. During this time he helped to start the Campesino a Campesino Movement. He returned to the U.S. twice during this period: once for his M.Sc. in international agricultural development and then for his Ph.D. in environmental studies . His dissertation research was the basis for his first book Campesino a Campesino: Voices from the farmer-to-farmer movement for sustainable agriculture in Latin America. After receiving his Ph.D.

#2455

Andrew N. Jordan

#124509

Overall Influence

#2456

Rangin Dadfar Spanta

#93675

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta is a politician in Afghanistan who last served as National Security Advisor of President Hamid Karzai. Prior to that he served as Foreign Minister from April 2006 to January 2010.

#2457

Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier

#69542

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier is an American political scientist and Distinguished University Professor at the Ohio State University. Box-Steffensmeier graduated magna cum laude from Coe College in mathematics and political science and received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas in 1993 with her dissertation Candidates, Contributors, and Campaign Strategy: It's About Time. In 2008 she was made a Fellow of the Society for Political Methodology and, received the Warren E. Miller Award for Meritorious Service to the Social Sciences from the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research in 2013.

#2458

Judith Brett

#77655

Overall Influence

1949 - Present (75 years)

Judith Margaret Brett is an Emeritus Professor of politics at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She retired from La Trobe in 2012, after a restructuring of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in which the School of which she was head was dismantled.

#2459

Alek Epstein

#70493

Overall Influence

1975 - Present (49 years)

Alek D. Epstein is a Russian-Israeli sociologist of culture and politics. He divides his time between Jerusalem and Moscow, taking part in a number of academic, educational, social change and civil rights activism projects in both countries. He has published more than 200 manuscripts in various scientific journals and collections and authored more than 20 books on Israel and the Middle East.

#2460

Lars-Erik Cederman

#105891

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Lars-Erik Cederman is a Swiss-Swedish political scientist and professor of International Conflict Research at ETH Zurich. His main fields of research are ethnic inequality and conflict, power-sharing, state formation and nationalism.

#2461

A. C. Graham

#31911

Overall Influence

1919 - 1991 (72 years)

Angus Charles Graham, FBA was a Welsh scholar and sinologist who was professor of classical Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He was born in Penarth, Glamorgan, Wales to Charles Harold and Mabelle Graham, the elder of two children. His father was originally a coal merchant who moved to Malaya to start a rubber plantation, and died in 1928 of malaria. Graham attended Ellesmore College, Shropshire, 1932–1937, and went on to read Theology at Corpus Christi College, Oxford , and Chinese at the School of Oriental and African Studies , University of London .

#2462

Kevin Sabet

#36371

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Kevin Abraham Sabet is a former three-time White House Office of National Drug Control Policy advisor, having been the only person appointed to that office by both a Republican and Democrat . He is also an assistant professor adjunct at Yale University Medical School, a fellow at Yale's Institution for Social and Policy Studies, and a columnist at Newsweek.

#2463

Yuval Steinitz

#67959

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Yuval Steinitz is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for the Likud party. He also held several ministerial posts, including Minister of Finance, Minister of Intelligence, Minister of Strategic Affairs and Minister of Energy. Steinitz holds a PhD in philosophy and was a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa.

#2464

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen

#67098

Overall Influence

1980 - Present (44 years)

Rasmus Kleis Nielsen is professor of political communication and Director at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at the University of Oxford. Nielsen earned his BA and MSc in political science at the University of Copenhagen, his MA in political theory from the University of Essex, and his PhD in communications from Columbia University.

#2465

F. David Mathews

#85498

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Forrest David Mathews is an American politician who served as the 11th United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare during the administration of President Gerald Ford from 1975 to 1977. He also served two nonconsecutive terms as the president of the University of Alabama. In 1983, Mathews was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. He served as president and chief executive officer of the Kettering Foundation from 1981 to 2022. He is the author of several books on democratic practice and education.

#2466

David Van Slyke

#103925

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

David Michael Van Slyke is an American academic and the Dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is the professor of government and policy affairs and Louis A. Bantle Chair in Business-Government Policy. He previously taught at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.

#2467

Philip Oxhorn

#83153

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Philip Oxhorn is a professor in international development and societal issues and a university executive. He is the founding director of the Institute for the Study of International Development at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, where he teaches political science and edits the Latin American Research Review. In 2016, Oxhorn was appointed to a five-year term as McGill University's Associate Provost of International University Affairs.

#2468

Thomas P. Bernstein

#84579

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Thomas Paul Bernstein is an American political scientist and specialist in the Chinese political economy and communist systems. He is an emeritus professor at Columbia University. Biography Bernstein earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University and joined the Columbia faculty in 1975. Bernstein has written about the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union and China, state-peasant relations, economic growth during China's reform and opening period, and Sino-Soviet relations. He served as two-time chairman of Columbia's department of political science and retired from teaching in 2007.

#2469

Leonie Huddy

#77944

Overall Influence

Leonie Huddy is an Australian political scientist, currently a professor of political science at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She studies American patriotism and national identity, public opinion regarding the Iraq War, and political identity in areas like attitudes towards feminism and gendered perceptions about political candidates.

#2470

Clayton Clemens

#114532

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Clayton M. Clemens is a Chancellor Professor of Government and Assistant Chair of the Government Department at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. His research specialization is German politics and foreign policy. He is the editor of The Kohl Chancellorship and NATO and the Quest for Post-Cold War Security . His articles have appeared in West European Politics, German Politics, International Affairs, and Armed Forces and Society.

#2471

Adam Wielomski

#80735

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Adam Wielomski is a professor at the University of Natural Sciences and Humanities in Siedlce, where he teaches in the Institute of Social Sciences and Security of the Faculty of Humanities. Wielomski is the author and co-author of several books on Spanish and French counter-revolutionary political thought. He is also the editor-in-chief of quarterly journal Pro Fide Rege et Lege and a columnist for Najwyższy Czas!.

#2472

Jeffrey D. Mervis

#125495

Overall Influence

#2473

Murray Jacob Edelman

#125569

Overall Influence

#2474

Elliott S. Fisher

#56991

Overall Influence

Elliott S. Fisher is a health policy researcher and advocate for improving health system performance in the United States. He helped develop the concept of accountable care organizations and championed their adoption by Medicare. The development of the Affordable Care Act was influenced by his research on disparities in healthcare spending and utilization across the United States. He has strongly supported a rapid transition from fee-for-service to pay-for-performance models in the U.S. healthcare industry. He is a tenured faculty member at Dartmouth College, where he teaches in the Masters in...

#2475

Christoph Hartmut Bluth

#61174

Overall Influence

2000 - Present (24 years)

Christoph Hartmut Bluth is a professor of international relations and security at the University of Bradford. Family and education Christoph Bluth was born in Frankfurt and grew up in North Rhine-Westphalia. He is the son of Winfried Bluth who was an evangelical Christian and a publishing consultant. He studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he completed a BA in mathematics and an MPhil in ecumenical theology . His master's thesis, Just War Theory and the Falklands/Malvinas Conflict, was supervised by Bill McSweeney; its conclusions were published in the Journal of Peace Research. At King...

#2476

Terrell Carver

#19563

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Terrell Foster Carver is a Professor of Political Theory at the University of Bristol. Career Carver was born in Boise, Idaho. After receiving his B.A. from Columbia University in 1968, Carver went on to study in England. After finishing his BPhil and DPhil at Oxford University, he worked as a lecturer at the University of Liverpool between 1974 and 1979. In 1980 he moved to the University of Bristol, where he was a lecturer until 1990, when he became a reader. In 1985/86 he was visiting professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. In 1991 he was both a visiting fellow at The Research Sch...

#2477

Sergei Lousianin

Sergei Lousianin

#102149

Overall Influence

1956 - Present (68 years)

Sergei Lousianin is a Russian political scientist, orientalist, an expert on international relations in East Asia, domestic and foreign policy of China and Mongolia, security issues in the Asia-Pacific Region and Central Asia.

#2478

Peter Uvin

#103329

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Peter Uvin is a Belgian-born American political scientist. He is a professor of Government at Claremont McKenna College. He was the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty. He resigned that position on 28 August 2020. He is the author of four books, including Aiding Violence: The Development Enterprise in Rwanda, which won the Herskovits Prize of the African Studies Association in 1999.

#2479

Ruth Abbey

#69217

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Ruth Abbey is an Australian political theorist with interests in contemporary political theory, history of political thought and feminist political thought. She was a John Cardinal O'Hara, C.S.C. Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science of the University of Notre Dame.

#2480

Ruth Mandel

#72572

Overall Influence

1938 - 2020 (82 years)

Ruth Mandel , usually published as Ruth B. Mandel, was an American political scientist. She was the Director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University for more than 20 years, where she was also a Professor of Politics.

#2481

Gwendolen M. Carter

#89500

Overall Influence

1906 - 1991 (85 years)

Professor Gwendolen Margaret Carter was a Canadian-American political scientist. She was one of the founders of African Studies in the United States, past president of the African Studies Association and was among the most widely known scholars of African affairs in the twentieth century.

#2482

Andrew West

#40973

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Andrew Christopher West is an English Sinologist. His first works concerned Chinese novels of the Ming and Qing dynasties. His study of Romance of the Three Kingdoms used a new approach to analyse the relationship among the various versions, extrapolating the original text of that novel.

#2483

Ray Hnatyshyn

#64975

Overall Influence

1934 - 2002 (68 years)

Roman John Hnatyshyn was a Canadian lawyer and statesman who served as governor general of Canada, the 24th since Canadian Confederation. Hnatyshyn was born and educated in Saskatchewan and served in the Royal Canadian Air Force prior to being elected to the House of Commons in 1974. On June 4, 1979, Hnatyshyn was sworn into the Queen's Privy Council for Canada and served as a minister of the Crown in two non-successive governments until 1988.

#2484

Torun Dewan

#110009

Overall Influence

1967 - Present (57 years)

Torun Dewan is professor of political science at the London School of Economics. Dewan is a specialist in political parties and coalitions, ministerial turnover and legislative and executive behaviour.

#2485

Stephen Silvia

#78081

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Stephen J. Silvia is a professor at American University's School of International Service and an affiliate professor in American University's Economics Department. He teaches international economics, international trade relations, and comparative politics. He is a noted expert on the German economy, in particular, on German labor markets and industrial relations. He has written about comparative industrial relations, European Union economic policy, and comparative economic policy, with an emphasis on Germany and the United States.

#2486

Robert W Cox

#126313

Overall Influence

#2487

Patrick Garry

#81154

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Patrick Garry , is an American law professor, author, and is the director of the Hagemann Center for Legal & Public Policy Research. Early life and education Patrick M. Garry attended the University of Minnesota where he subsequently earned his B.A., MA., J.D. and a Ph.D. in Constitutional History. Garry was a research scholar at the Freedom Forum Media Studies Center and a visiting scholar at Columbia University Law School. Garry served as the legal advisor to the Silha Center for Media Law and Ethics at the University of Minnesota. Garry also served as the legal counsel to the Minnesota News...

#2488

Brian C. H. Fong

#99686

Overall Influence

1978 - Present (46 years)

Brian C. H. Fong is a Hong Kong political scholar. He is currently Professor in the College of Social Sciences at National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. He found and led several civil society organizations in Hong Kong.

#2489

Lauras Bielinis

Lauras Bielinis

#93496

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Lauras Bielinis is a Lithuanian political scientist and a professor at Vytautas Magnus University. His research topics include analysis of political text, election technologies, and political communication.

#2490

Mervyn Frost

#64815

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Mervyn Frost is a South African and British political scientist. Life Frost was born and brought up in Johannesburg, he studied at Highlands North Boys High School, the Stellenbosch University and as a Rhodes Scholar at the University of Oxford .

#2491

Philipp Genschel

#113471

Overall Influence

Philipp Genschel is a German political scientist. He currently holds the Joint Chair in European Public Policy at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies and the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Before joining the EUI, he was a professor of political science at Jacobs University Bremen, Germany, and a research associate at the Max-Planck-Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany.

#2492

Sim Sang-jung

#95960

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Sim Sang-jung is a South Korean politician and labor rights activist. She was one of the five major presidential candidates in the 2017 South Korean presidential election, running as the Justice Party's nominee. She again ran as the Justice Party's nominee in the 2022 South Korean presidential election, finishing in 3rd place.

#2493

Manuel Sager

#49375

Overall Influence

1955 - Present (69 years)

Manuel Sager is a Swiss diplomat who served as the Ambassador of Switzerland to the United States from 2010 to 2014. He was appointed to the position in December 2010. Early years He attended graduate school in North Carolina, worked as a lawyer in Arizona and held diplomatic posts in New York City and Washington, DC.

#2494

Ronald D. Godard

#63250

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Ronald Dwight Godard is an American retired diplomat who was a career Foreign Service Officer with the grade of Minister Counselor. He was given the temporary rank of Ambassador in July 1998. Early life Godard was born in Anadarko, Oklahoma on July 8, 1942. He moved around often as a child due to his father’s work in the oil business and they moved to Odessa, Texas when he was in the ninth grade. After graduating from high school in Odessa, he went on to study at Odessa College. Godard was inspired by his history teacher Mary Jane Gentry and his plan was to study history and become a professor.

#2495

Ben Sasse

#56883

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Benjamin Eric Sasse is an American academic administrator and former politician who is the president of the University of Florida. He served as a United States senator from Nebraska from 2015 to 2023 and is a member of the Republican Party.

#2496

Christian Lequesne

Christian Lequesne

#66611

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Christian Lequesne is a French academic. He is professor of European politics at Sciences Po and director of the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales , and professor at the College of Europe . Additionally, he currently serves as a visiting professor at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. He was the first LSE-Sciences Po Alliance Professor at the London School of Economics , a chair funded by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was the Theseus Visiting Professor at the University of Cologne 2009-2010. He is on the editorial boards or scientific councils of Critique internationale, Politique européenne, and the Journal of European Integration.

#2497

Dina Zinnes

#114155

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Dina A. Zinnes is an American political scientist. She is Professor Emerita in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois. Zinnes studies international relations, and was a pioneer in the use of mathematical models in political science research.

#2498

Dawn Dekle

#25631

Overall Influence

Dawn Dekle is an American international educator formerly serving as the fourth president of the American University of Nigeria. Education Dawn Dekle completed her undergraduate studies at Texas A&M University, going on to earn a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from Dartmouth College, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School.

#2499

Jeffrey Hunker

#35424

Overall Influence

1957 - 2013 (56 years)

Jeffrey Hunker was an American cyber security consultant and writer. Biography Hunker received his bachelor's degree from Harvard College and Ph.D. from Harvard Business School. He joined the Boston Consulting Group before becoming an advisor in the Department of Commerce and the founding director of the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office . This led him to serve on the National Security Council as the Senior Director for Critical Infrastructure.

#2500

Sa'ed Atshan

#65837

Overall Influence

Sa'ed Atshan is a Palestinian anthropologist and professor at Emory University. Works Paradoxes of Humanitarianism: The Social Life of Aid in the Palestinian Territories

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