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).
Methodology: How and Why We Rank by Influence …
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List of the most influential people in Political Science,
#2501
Karen Alter
#100705
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Karen J. Alter is an American academic, well known for her interdisciplinary work on international law's influence in international and domestic politics. Alter is a figure in comparative international courts and the politics of international regime complexity. Her early work focused on the European Court of Justice, a topic on which she published two books and many articles. Karen Alter is a Guggenheim Fellow, and the winner of a Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin. Alter has a courtesy appointment at Northwestern Law School. Fluent in French, Italian and German, Alter has conduc...
Go to Profile#2502
Anoushiravan Ehteshami
#122691
Overall Influence
Anoushiravan "Anoush" Ehteshami is the Professor and was Joint Director of the ESRC Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World at Durham University. Ehteshami is the Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah Chair in International Relations and Director of the HH Sheikh Nasser al-Mohammad al-Sabah Programme in International Relations, Regional Politics and Security. He was also Joint Director of the RCUK-the funded center of excellence, the Durham-Edinburgh-Manchester Universities’ Centre for the Advanced Study of the Arab World , whose research focus since 2012 has been on the ‘Arab World in Transition’.
Go to Profile#2503
James Mallory
#77161
Overall Influence
1916 - 2003 (87 years)
James Russell Mallory was a Canadian academic and constitutionalal expert. Career His radio interview after the 1957 federal election, influenced Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent to allow John Diefenbaker to become the next Prime Minister. He was also consulted by Governor-General Ed Schreyer after the minority Progressive Conservative government led by Prime Minister Joe Clark was defeated on a motion of no confidence in the Commons.
Go to Profile#2504
Ted Morton
#94436
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Frederick Lee Morton , known commonly as Ted Morton, is an American-Canadian politician and former cabinet minister in the Alberta government. As a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, he represented the constituency of Foothills-Rocky View as a Progressive Conservative from 2004 to 2012 . He did not win reelection in the 2012 Alberta general election. Morton was a candidate for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Association in its 2006 and 2011 leadership elections. Morton is currently Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Calgary.
Go to Profile#2505
Michael Byers
#75484
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Michael Byers is a Canadian legal scholar and non-fiction author. Academic background Byers was educated at the University of Saskatchewan, where he received his BA with majors in English literature and political studies. He then studied law at McGill University, achieving his LLB and BCL degrees in 1992. He completed his studies at University of Cambridge, where he received his PhD in international law. Before becoming a professor of political science at University of British Columbia in 2004, he was a research fellow from 1996 until 1999 at University of Oxford, and from 1999 until 2004, he...
Go to Profile#2506
Manuel Antonio Garretón
#38554
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Manuel Antonio Garretón is a Chilean sociologist, political scientist and essayist. He received the National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences in 2007 for his lifetime contribution to the field.
Go to Profile#2507
Jay P. Greene
#59388
Overall Influence
Jay P. Greene is a senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He was previously a distinguished professor and head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. Greene’s current areas of research interest include school choice and the effects of education on character formation and civic values. He is also known for his work studying culturally enriching field trips to art museums and theaters, his efforts to improve the accurate reporting of high school graduation rates, address financial incentives in special education, and the use of standardized tests to cu...
Go to Profile#2508
Henry Alfred Kissinger
#127458
Overall Influence
#2509
Ray Heffner
#34725
Overall Influence
1925 - 2012 (87 years)
Ray Lorenzo Heffner was an American educator and president of Brown University. He served in the United States Navy during World War II and graduated from Yale College in 1948, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the Elizabethan Club, and Scroll and Key. He earned his master's degree at Yale in 1950 and his Ph.D., also from Yale, in 1953 following the completion of a dissertation on the Elizabethan poet Michael Drayton.
Go to Profile#2510
Rami Hamdallah
#75230
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Rami Hamdallah is a Palestinian politician and academic. He served as prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority from 2014 to 2019 and president of An-Najah National University in Nablus. On 2 June 2013, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas named him to succeed Salam Fayyad as prime minister. His appointment was not recognized by Hamas, who were not consulted in the decision. He is a member of Fatah; however, the BBC states that he is a political independent. On 20 June 2013, Hamdallah tendered his resignation, which Abbas accepted on 23 June. Six weeks after that, Abbas asked Hamdallah to form a new government, which he did on 19 September 2013.
Go to Profile#2511
Wendy Thomson
#71748
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Professor Wendy Thomson is a Canadian-born public administrator and social policy researcher and advisor who has worked in both Canada and the UK. Thomson was the managing director of Norfolk County Council from 2014 until the end of 2018. Since July 2019, she has served as Vice-Chancellor of the University of London.
Go to Profile#2512
Evelin Lindner
#56470
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Evelin Gerda Lindner is a German-Norwegian medical doctor, psychologist, transdisciplinary scholar and author who is known for her theory of humiliation. Lindner is originally a physician and a clinical psychologist, and holds doctorates in both psychological medicine and social psychology. Her research focuses on human dignity, and she believes that the humiliation of honor and dignity may be among the strongest obstacles on the way to a decent world community. She founded the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network. Born in Germany, she is now mainly based in Norway, where she has partially lived since 1977.
Go to Profile#2513
Michel Wieviorka
#16576
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Michel Wieviorka is a French sociologist, noted for his work on violence, terrorism, racism, social movements and the theory of social change. He was the 16th president of International Sociological Association .
Go to Profile#2514
Mario Telò
#124269
Overall Influence
1950 - 2023 (73 years)
Mario Telò was an Italian political scientist and researcher born in Cremona who focused on European studies, political theory and international relations. Telò was a researcher and professor in many European, Asian and American universities. Since 1995, Telò was the “J.Monnet Chair ad personam”, and, since 2006, a member of the Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium
Go to Profile#2515
Juwono Sudarsono
#96909
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Juwono Sudarsono is an Indonesian former diplomat and the author of works on political science and international relations. He was educated at the University of Indonesia, Jakarta ; The Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, the Netherlands; the University of California, Berkeley, USA ; and the London School of Economics, UK . He is currently an Emeritus Professor of the University of Indonesia.
Go to Profile#2516
Charles F. Hermann
#95752
Overall Influence
1938 - Present (86 years)
Charles Frazer Hermann holds the Brent Scowcroft Chair in International Policy Studies at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. He is an expert in matters relating to American foreign policy, crisis management, and decision-making.
Go to Profile#2517
Margaret Clark
#68034
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Dame Margaret Clark is a New Zealand political science academic. She is currently an emeritus professor of politics at Victoria University of Wellington. Early life, family, and education Born in Wellington on 28 January 1941, Clark was educated at Wellington East Girls' College. She went on to study at Wellington Teachers' Training College and Victoria University College, completing a Bachelor of Arts in politics at the latter institution in 1960. After winning a Rotary Foundation Fellowship, she undertook further study at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur from 1962 to 1963, graduati...
Go to Profile#2518
Rod Thornton
#6935
Overall Influence
2000 - Present (24 years)
Rod Thornton is a Senior Lecturer in the Defence Studies Department of King's College London. He previously taught at the University of Kurdistan Hewler in Erbil, Iraq and in the University of Nottingham's department of Politics and International Relations. He was suspended from the University of Nottingham in spring 2011 after publishing an article critical of the University's handling of the arrest of one of its students. He subsequently left the university by "mutual agreement" with the university.
Go to Profile#2519
Hussein Mohamed Adam
#91746
Overall Influence
Hussein Mohammed Adam "Tanzania" was a Somali professor, originally from Hargeisa, Somaliland, but born and raised in Arusha, Tanzania. He graduated in 1966 with his undergraduate degree from Princeton University. He gained his PhD in political science from Harvard University and a master's degree from Makerere University with his book "A Nation in Search of a Script".
Go to Profile#2520
Scott E. Page
#11439
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Scott E. Page is an American social scientist and John Seely Brown Distinguished University Professor of Complexity, Social Science, and Management at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he has been working since 2000. He has also been director of the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute .
Go to Profile#2521
Alwi Shihab
#78412
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Alwi Abdurrahman Shihab is a scholar of the interaction of Christian and Muslim communities. Currently he is the Indonesian President's special envoy to the Middle East and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. He held the office of Indonesian Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare in 2004–2005 and the Foreign Minister of Indonesia from 1999 to 2001.
Go to Profile#2522
Christoph Schumann
#80861
Overall Influence
1969 - 2013 (44 years)
Christoph Schumann was a German political scientist. Career After graduating with an Abitur from Ernst-Mach-Gymnasium Haar in 1988 and serving in alternative civilian service in Munich, Schumann studied history, political science and Islamic studies from 1993 to 1996 at the University of Würzburg. He finished his thesis with the title „Radikalnationalismus in Syrien und Libanon. Politische Sozialisation und Elitenbildung, 1930–1958“ , in July 2000. From 2007 to 2009 he was assistant professor at the Institute for Islamic Studies and Modern Oriental Philology at the University of Bern. From F...
Go to Profile#2523
Lawrence Cannon
#87729
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Lawrence Cannon, is a Canadian politician from Quebec and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's former Quebec lieutenant. In early 2006, he was made the Minister of Transport. On October 30, 2008, he relinquished oversight of Transport and was sworn in as Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was defeated in the 2011 federal election by the NDP's Mathieu Ravignat. He was appointed as Canadian Ambassador to France in May 2012, and he served in that position until September 2017.
Go to Profile#2524
Thomas Brunell
#107143
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Thomas L. Brunell is an American political scientist and professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Brunell studied political science and earned a Ph.D. in 1997 from the University of California, Irvine. His research and teaching mainly focus on American politics - elections, Congress, political parties, and redistricting. In 2008, he published a book entitled Rethinking Redistricting: Why Competitive Elections are Bad for America.
Go to Profile#2525
Vladimir Nikolayevich Petrov
#41003
Overall Influence
1915 - 1999 (84 years)
Vladimir Nikolayevich Petrov was at various times an academic, philatelist, prisoner, forced laborer, political prisoner, adventurer, factory worker, chess player and writer of short stories and autobiographies. He was at various times a Russian, American, and man of no country, though he was brought up in the USSR and died in the United States. Most of the information concerning his life originates from his personal memoirs, entitled Soviet Gold and My Retreat from Russia and collected in the published work Escape from the Future.
Go to Profile#2526
Raphael Sonenshein
#41780
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Raphael J. Sonenshein is Executive Director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles and was previously a professor of political science at California State University, Fullerton, where he also served as chairman of the department. An instructor at California State University, Fullerton from 1982 to 2012, Sonenshein holds a bachelor's degree in public policy from Princeton University and a doctorate in political science from Yale University. His books, Politics in Black and White: Race and Power in Los Angeles and The City at Stake: Secession,...
Go to Profile#2527
Steven Walt
#39146
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Steven D. Walt is a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. He teaches courses on contracts, sales/commercial paper, legal philosophy, bankruptcy and secured transactions. Biography Walt graduated cum laude with a B.A. from Kalamazoo College in 1976. Walt also holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago .
Go to Profile#2528
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem
#70886
Overall Influence
1977 - Present (47 years)
Najat Vallaud-Belkacem is a former Moroccan-French jurist and politician of the Socialist Party who was the first French woman to serve as Minister of Education, Higher Education, and Research in the governments of successive Prime Ministerss Manuel Valls and Bernard Cazeneuve from 2014 until 2017. Since 2020, she has been the director of the One Campaign in France.
Go to Profile#2529
Gan Yang
#43929
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Gan Yang is a Chinese political philosopher, "Confucian socialist". He is dean of the Liberal Arts College at Sun Yat-sen University, and was formerly professor of political philosophy at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Go to Profile#2530
Joseph M. Schwartz
#83866
Overall Influence
1954 - Present (70 years)
Joseph M. Schwartz is a political activist and political and social theorist. He is a Professor of Political Science at Temple University, where he served as department chair from 2000-2005. Biography Schwartz received his B.A. in History from Cornell University where he was a Telluride Scholar, and a PhD in Political Science from Harvard University. He also received his second B.A. at Oxford University as a recipient of a Marshall Scholarship.
Go to Profile#2531
Richard Pattenaude
#69127
Overall Influence
1946 - Present (78 years)
Richard L. Pattenaude is an American political scientist and academic administrator. He is president of Ashford University and has served as president of the University of Southern Maine and Chancellor of the University of Maine System.
Go to Profile#2532
Hugh Segal
#89533
Overall Influence
1950 - 2023 (73 years)
Hugh Segal was a Canadian political strategist, author, commentator, academic, and senator. He served as chief of staff to Ontario Premier Bill Davis and later to Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. Segal resigned from the Senate of Canada on June 15, 2014, as a result of his appointment as master of Massey College in Toronto.
Go to Profile#2533
Michael Wesley
#96608
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Michael Wesley is an Australian academic of Indian descent. He was appointed Professor of International Relations and Deputy VC International at the University of Melbourne in 2019, and was previously Dean of the College of Asia and the Pacific and Professor at The Australian National University. He also consults extensively for the Australian government.
Go to Profile#2534
Luciano Violante
#74196
Overall Influence
1941 - Present (83 years)
Luciano Violante is an Italian judge and politician, Member of Parliament from 1979 to 2008. He is particularly interested in questions of justice, the struggle against the Mafia and institutional reform.
Go to Profile#2535
Garry Rodan
#123875
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Garry Rodan is an Australian academic who has been Emeritus Professor at Murdoch University since 2019. Rodan served as the Director of the Asia Research Centre at Murdoch and Professor of Politics and International Studies . He is also an elected Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.
Go to Profile#2536
Larry Downes
#52626
Overall Influence
1959 - Present (65 years)
Larry Downes is an Internet industry analyst and author on business strategies and information technology. Downes is best known for his first book, Unleashing the Killer App: Digital Strategies for Market Dominance , which focuses on the potential of products and services for dramatically changing business. Unleashing the Killer App was a New York Times bestseller, sold over 200,000 copies, and was named by the Wall Street Journal one of the five most important books on business and the Internet ever published.
Go to Profile#2537
Mary Ann Casey
#94449
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Mary Ann Casey is an American retired diplomat who was a career Foreign Service Officer and U.S. Ambassador to Algeria and Tunisia . Life and career Casey was born in Boulder, Colorado on November 11, 1949. She graduated with a degree in international relations from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1970, and spent most of her overseas career in northern Africa. Her first assignment was as vice consul and political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Morocco; her most recent overseas position was Ambassador to Tunisia. In between, she spent time as a Watch Officer in the State Department O...
Go to Profile#2538
Sam C. Sarkesian
#93289
Overall Influence
1927 - 2011 (84 years)
Sam Charles Sarkesian was a prominent scholar of civil-military relations and national security, who published numerous books and articles concerning various topics in these areas. He was also a member of the military, serving in Korea and Vietnam. He retired from the U.S. Army as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was also a professor emeritus of political science at Loyola University Chicago, where he was the Chair of the political science department and influenced many new scholars in the field. He also served as the second president of the Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society . His m...
Go to Profile#2539
Richard D. McLellan
#57798
Overall Influence
Richard D. McLellan is a lawyer at McLellan Law Offices PLLC. He has served as Chairman of the Michigan Law Revision Commission since 1986. He argued on the side of the appellee in the United States Supreme Court case Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652 .
Go to Profile#2540
Paul Mattick Jr.
#39199
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Paul Mattick Jr. is the son of German emigres Paul Mattick Sr. and Ilse Mattick . He was involved in the council communist group Root and Branch, which sporadically published a magazine/pamphlet series, starting in 1969. Other members included Jeremy Brecher, Alice Comack, Martin Comack, Frieda Cyker, Peter St Clair, Elizabeth Long, William Russell, Elizabeth Jones, George Scialabba, and Peter Rachleff. The group also sponsored public meetings; speakers included Ralph Miliband, Christian Wolff, Cornelius Castoriadis, Richard Lewontin, Frank Marquart, Paul Mattick, and others.
Go to Profile#2541
Mehdi Hasan
#61100
Overall Influence
1937 - 2022 (85 years)
Mehdi Hasan SI was a Pakistani left-wing journalist, media historian, and academician. He was one of Pakistan's most prominent communication experts, with a specialization in political analysis. Early life and education Hasan was born on 27 June 1937 in Panipat, British India. His family migrated to Pakistan in 1947 and settled in Sahiwal. Hasan did Master in Journalism and PhD in mass communication from the University of the Punjab on Role of Press in Formation of Public Opinion 1857–1947. He won a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he conducted research on "Cove...
Go to Profile#2542
Peter Frank
#59785
Overall Influence
1934 - 2013 (79 years)
Peter John Frank was a professor of Russian politics in the Department of Government at the University of Essex and a media commentator on Russian affairs. He was born in Whitby, Yorkshire and after leaving school in 1950 did national service in the Army where he learnt the Russian language. He then trained as a teacher and did post-graduate work at the University of Leeds, before becoming a lecturer at the University of Essex in 1968. He was known for his television appearances on Channel 4 News as an expert on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. He also contributed to BBC News 24, BBC Wor...
Go to Profile#2543
Troy Paino
#25270
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Troy D. Paino is an American lawyer and academic administrator serving as the president at the University of Mary Washington . Prior to coming to UMW, Paino served for six years as president of Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri. Previously, he was Truman State's provost and vice president for academic affairs, and he also served as dean of Winona State University's College of Liberal Arts.
Go to Profile#2544
Hiroya Masuda
#72560
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Hiroya Masuda is a Japanese politician, government official, and business executive. He was Minister of Internal Affairs and Communications from August 2007 to September 2008, and has served as the president and CEO of Japan Post Holdings since January 2020.
Go to Profile#2545
Lyman Ray Patterson
#27605
Overall Influence
1929 - 2003 (74 years)
Lyman Ray Patterson was an American law professor and an influential copyright scholar and historian. Biography Patterson was born in Macon, Georgia. He graduated from Mercer University, and obtained a master's degree in English from Northwestern University. After teaching English at Middle Georgia College, he joined the Army where he studied Russian at the Army Language School. During the Korean War he served as a translator of Russian radio broadcasts. Following the Army he attended law school at Mercer University. After practicing law for two years with the firm of Matthews, Maddox, Wal...
Go to Profile#2546
Jamie Raskin
#65636
Overall Influence
1962 - Present (62 years)
Jamin Ben Raskin is an American attorney, law professor, and politician serving as the U.S. representative for Maryland's 8th congressional district since 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he served in the Maryland State Senate from 2007 to 2016. The district previously included portions of Montgomery County, a suburban county northwest of Washington, D.C., and extended through rural Frederick County to the Pennsylvania border. Since redistricting in 2022, Raskin's district now encompasses only part of Montgomery County.
Go to Profile#2547
Bev Perdue
#67735
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Beverly Eaves Perdue is an American businesswoman, politician, and member of the Democratic Party who served as the 73rd governor of North Carolina from 2009 to 2013. She was the first female governor of North Carolina.
Go to Profile#2548
Sebastiano Maffettone
#35762
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Sebastiano Maffettone is a political philosopher and University Professor at LUISS Guido Carli University of Rome, where he teaches Political Philosophy and Theories of Globalization. He has taught in several Italian universities as well as International universities . Maffettone graduated summa cum laude from the University of Naples in 1970, and he completed his graduate studies in social philosophy LSE in 1976, under the supervision of philosophers such as Karl Popper and Amartya K. Sen.
Go to Profile#2549
Makoto Taniguchi
#43978
Overall Influence
1930 - Present (94 years)
is a Japanese diplomat and academic, a former Ambassador of Japan to the United Nations and a former Chairman of UNICEF in 1988. He received a B.A. and an M.A. from Hitotsubashi University, and then earned a B.A. at St John's College, Cambridge in 1959. He joined the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1959, and served in international organizations including the United Nations, GATT and the OECD. He was Ambassador of Japan to the United Nations from 1986 to 1989. In this capacity, he was also Vice Chairman and Chairman of the UNICEF Executive Board at the international level. He was Deputy Secretary-General of OECD from 1990 to 1996.
Go to Profile#2550
Thomas R. Dye
#129960
Overall Influence
