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,
#2801
Robert E. Horn
#24042
Overall Influence
1933 - Present (91 years)
Robert E. Horn is an American political scientist who taught at Harvard, Columbia, and Sheffield universities, and has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center for the Study of Language and Information. He is known for the development of information mapping.
Go to Profile#2802
Jean-Luc Domenach
#93371
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Jean-Luc Domenach is a French historian, sinologist and political scientist. He is a senior research fellow at Fondation nationale des sciences politiques. His research focuses on chinese and asian politics. From 1985 to 1994, Jean-Luc Domenach was the director of the Centre d'études et de recherches internationales . From 1995 to 2000, he was scientific director of the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques. From 2002, he was based in Beijing, as head of French-Chinese doctoral workshop of Tsinghua University, which later morphed into the Centre Franco-Chinois. After 2007, he taught at ...
Go to Profile#2803
Su Chi
#108777
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Su Chi is a Taiwanese politician. Su served as Secretary-General of the National Security Council from 2008 to 2010. Previously, he was the Minister of the Mainland Affairs Council of the Executive Yuan from 1 February 1999 to 19 May 2000.
Go to Profile#2804
Alice Palmer
#85347
Overall Influence
1939 - 2023 (84 years)
Alice J. Palmer was an American educator and politician who served as a member of the Illinois Senate. Known as a longtime progressive activist, Palmer represented the state's 13th Senate District from June 6, 1991, until January 8, 1997. At the time, the district spanned an economically diverse area and included the Chicago communities of Hyde Park, South Shore and Englewood.
Go to Profile#2805
Rhoda Howard-Hassmann
#118611
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann is a Canadian social scientist who specializes in international human rights. Biography Howard-Hassmann was born Rhoda Howard in Scotland. Her mother was Scottish, her father was a refugee from Nazi Germany. She was brought to Canada at a young age and attended public schools in Quebec and southern Ontario. She is married and the mother of one son, born in 1981. In 1999 she changed her legal name from Rhoda E. Howard to Rhoda E. Hassmann, but she publishes her academic work as Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann. She has lived in Hamilton, Ontario since 1976.
Go to Profile#2806
Maciej Popowski
#92132
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Maciej Popowski is a Polish diplomat and official, and Director-General of the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection & Humanitarian Aid Operations. Life In 1988, Maciej Popowski earned his master's degree in German and Dutch language and literature at the University of Wrocław. He has been educated also at the University of Siegen , Polish Institute of International Affairs , and Akademie Auswärtiger Dienst in Bonn .
Go to Profile#2807
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer
#93394
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer is an American academic. He sought the endorsement of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party as a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2008, but was defeated by Al Franken. Background Nelson-Pallmeyer was born as the youngest of four brothers to parents Wayne and Audrey Nelson in 1951. He was born and raised in Minnesota. He went to high school in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, and then attended St. Olaf College in Northfield. After graduating with a B.A. in political science, he earned a Master's of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He has written several books on war, hunger issues, theology, and foreign policy.
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Joseph N. Crowley
#112937
Overall Influence
1933 - 2017 (84 years)
Joseph Neil Crowley was the 13th president of the University of Nevada, Reno from 1978 to 2001 and interim president from 2005 to 2006 and was the longest-serving president at the university and cannabis advocate. He was a member of the Democratic Party.
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Susan Mendus
#71345
Overall Influence
1951 - Present (73 years)
Susan Lesley "Sue" Mendus, , FLSW is a Welsh academic specialising in political philosophy. She is currently Professor Emerita of Political Philosophy at the University of York. She was Vice-President of the British Academy between 2008 and 2012.
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Caroline Cox, Baroness Cox
#91848
Overall Influence
1937 - Present (87 years)
Caroline Anne Cox, Baroness Cox, is a cross-bench member of the British House of Lords. She is also the founder of an organisation called Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust . Cox was created a Life Peer in 1982 and was a deputy speaker of the House of Lords from 1985 to 2005, as well as being a minister in government. She was also a Baroness-in-Waiting to Queen Elizabeth II. She was Founder Chancellor of Bournemouth University, Chancellor of Liverpool Hope University from 2006 to 2013, and is an Hon. Vice President of the Royal College of Nursing. She was a founder Trustee of MERLIN Medical Emerg...
Go to Profile#2811
Bryan D. Jones
#147620
Overall Influence
#2812
Adrian Guelke
#83907
Overall Influence
1947 - Present (77 years)
Adrian Guelke is Professor of Comparative Politics in the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy at Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was previously Jan Smuts Professor of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg from 1993 to 1995. After attending Diocesan College, Rondebosch, Cape Town, he studied for his BA and MA at the University of Cape Town where he also participated in the sit-in during the Mafeje affair in 1968. He earned his PhD at the London School of Economics. His thesis, dated 1994, was titled "The age of terrorism" and the international political system, 1967-1992.
Go to Profile#2813
Ran Hirschl
#106208
Overall Influence
1963 - Present (61 years)
Ran Hirschl is a political scientist and comparative legal scholar. He is the David R. Cameron Distinguished Professor of Law and Politics at the University of Toronto. Previously, he held the Canada Research Chair in Constitutionalism, Democracy and Development at the University of Toronto. He is the author of several major books and over one hundred and fifty articles on constitutional law and its intersection with comparative politics and society. In 2014, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 2021, he was awarded the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science ...
Go to Profile#2814
David S. Alberts
#37992
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
David Stephen Alberts is a former American Director of Research for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Networks and Information Integration . Biography David S. Alberts did his undergraduate work was at City College of New York where he received a bachelor's of arts degree in statistics in 1964. He received a master's degree in 1966 and a doctorate in operations research in 1968 from the University of Pennsylvania.
Go to Profile#2815
Jean-Germain Gros
#130810
Overall Influence
1964 - Present (60 years)
Jean-Germain Gros is a professor in political science at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Education Gros received his B.A in economics and sociology in 1985 from SUNY-Binghamton and his Ph.D. in political science from the University of California-Berkeley.
Go to Profile#2816
Meritxell Batet
#83125
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Meritxell Batet Lamaña is a Spanish jurist, former politician, and member of the Socialists' Party of Catalonia , who served as President of the Congress of Deputies from 2019 to 2023. Prior to this, she served as Minister for Territorial Policy and Civil Service of the Government of Spain between June 2018 and May 2019.
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Oliver Furley
#97549
Overall Influence
1927 - 2015 (88 years)
Oliver Willis Furley was an English historian and political scientist, formerly head of the department of politics and history at Coventry University and afterwards a visiting professor there. He was a specialist in the history and politics of East Africa about which he wrote a number of books.
Go to Profile#2818
Jesper Strömbäck
#148111
Overall Influence
1971 - Present (53 years)
#2819
Raul Ruiz
#68202
Overall Influence
1945 - 2019 (74 years)
Raul Ruíz was an American journalist, professor, and political activist for Chicano civil rights during the Chicano movement and for the Peace movement of the 1960s and '70s. Biography Ruiz was born in El Paso, Texas but moved to Los Angeles in his teen years. He attended California State University, Los Angeles where he earned both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree. As a reporter, and editor of La Raza, Ruíz covered the Chicano Moratorium. He notably photographed the police aiming tear gas launchers at the Silver Dollar Café, where Ruben Salazar was killed. Ruiz's photo, considered an essential historical image of the Chicano movement, ran on the cover of the L.A.
Go to Profile#2820
Jadwiga Emilewicz
#104405
Overall Influence
1974 - Present (50 years)
Jadwiga Katarzyna Emilewicz is a Polish politician and political scientist. In 2020, she was Deputy Prime Minister of Poland. In 2019, she became Minister of Development, upon her three-year service as an undersecretary of state in the Ministry of Development, and from 2018 to 2019, she was Minister of Entrepreneurship and Technology in the government of Mateusz Morawiecki.
Go to Profile#2821
David Wilkinson
#58578
Overall Influence
1939 - Present (85 years)
David Ormond Wilkinson is a professor of political science at the Department of Political Science of the University of California, Los Angeles. Education and career After graduating from Harvard College with a B.A. degree in 1960, Wilkinson was admitted to Columbia University, and received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in 1962 and 1965.
Go to Profile#2822
Barry Cooper
#100142
Overall Influence
1943 - Present (81 years)
Fraser Barry Cooper is a Canadian political scientist at the University of Calgary. Before coming to Calgary, he taught at Bishop's University , McGill University, and York University . The winner of a Killam Research Fellowship, he is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1991, Cooper wrote Action into Nature: An Essay on the Meaning of Technology and he co-authored Deconfederation: Canada without Quebec, in which he argued that Canada would benefit from Quebec separation. He is also the author of the 1999 publication Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of Modern Political Science.
Go to Profile#2823
Desson Thomson
#10453
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Desson Patrick Thomson is a former speechwriter for the Obama administration and former film critic for The Washington Post. He was known as Desson Howe until 2003 when he changed his name after reuniting with his birth father.
Go to Profile#2824
Ronald J. Oakerson
#121957
Overall Influence
1944 - Present (80 years)
Ronald J. Oakerson is a professor emeritus of political science and intercultural studies at Houghton College. He has served previously as the college's Vice President and Dean, as well as the chairman of the Department of History and Political Science. He is a founding member of the National Rural Studies Council and served on the American Political Science Association's Task Force on Civic Education for the Next Century. Elinor Ostrom described Oakerson as an important contributor to the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework. On the version of the framework Oakerson presented at ...
Go to Profile#2825
Mahnaz Shirali
#102639
Overall Influence
1965 - Present (59 years)
Dr. Mahnaz Shirali is an Iranian author and political sociologist who is a professor at Science Po university in France. She graduated in architecture engineering from faculty of fine arts of Tehran University in 1992. She moved to France in 1994 where she obtained her PhD in sociology from School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris in 2000. Her PhD thesis was about crisis in youth Iranian generation.
Go to Profile#2826
Uday Singh Mehta
#127149
Overall Influence
Uday Singh Mehta is an American political scientist, currently a Distinguished Professor at City University of New York, and previously the Clarence Francis Professor at Amherst College.
Go to Profile#2827
Thomas E. Patterson
#144333
Overall Influence
1942 - Present (82 years)
Thomas E. Patterson is an American political scientist. He is the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press Shorenstein Center at Harvard Kennedy School. Early life Patterson served in the Vietnam War as a lieutenant in the US Army Special Forces.
Go to Profile#2828
Cornelius P. Cotter
#126771
Overall Influence
1934 - 1999 (65 years)
Cornelius Philip Cotter was an American professor of political science. His research focused on civil rights and American political parties. Early life and education Cotter was born in New York City to family involved in local politics. He did not finish high school, but worked on the docks during World War II. After an injury, he spent a year in the hospital before enlisting in the Navy in 1943. Cotter served in the Marshall Islands, assigned to managing records of military trials.
Go to Profile#2829
Geoff Evans
#91667
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Geoffrey Evans, is a British political scientist and academic. He is Professor of the Sociology of Politics at the University of Oxford and an Official Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College, Oxford. He is a political scientist who has also held posts in psychology and sociology. An expert in elections, he is long-standing editor of the journal Electoral Studies. In 2013 he was appointed co-director of the British Election Study, the Scottish Referendum Study and the Northern Ireland Election Study. In 2016 he also became director of the EU Referendum Study.
Go to Profile#2830
Ahmed Souaiaia
#103899
Overall Influence
1950 - Present (74 years)
Ahmed Souaiaia is a professor at the University of Iowa with joint appointments in the Department of Religious Studies, International Studies, and College of Law. His research and teaching focus on women in Islam, human rights law, religion and politics, religion in the public sphere, political dissent in Islam, women in Islamic law, Islamic political theory, and modern Islamic thought.
Go to Profile#2831
J. Keith Melville
#114617
Overall Influence
1921 - 1995 (74 years)
J. Keith Melville was a political science professor at Brigham Young University and the chairman of the Utah Democratic Party. Melville was raised in Delta, Utah and also in Salt Lake City, Utah. He graduated from West High School in Salt Lake City and then began his studies at the University of Utah. He served in the United States military during World War II as the captain of a B-17 bomber. He has a master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah. His doctoral dissertation was entitled "The Political Ideas of Brigham Young".
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Covey T. Oliver
#68030
Overall Influence
1913 - 2007 (94 years)
Covey Thomas Oliver was a United States diplomat and law professor. Early life and education Oliver was born in Laredo, Texas on April 21, 1913. His father, Pheneas Covey, was a rancher, and his mother, Jane Thomas Covey, was a schoolteacher. Oliver was educated at the University of Texas, graduating in 1933. He then attended the University of Texas School of Law, graduating in 1936.
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Spencer Overton
#48207
Overall Influence
1968 - Present (56 years)
Spencer A. Overton is an American lawyer, President of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, and law professor at George Washington University Law School. He is a leading election law scholar, and is a tenured Professor of Law at George Washington University.
Go to Profile#2834
Jake Braun
#78673
Overall Influence
1975 - Present (49 years)
Jacob H. Braun is an American politician, cyber and national security expert. He was appointed by President Joseph Biden as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary's Senior Advisor to the Management Directorate. Braun is also a lecturer at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy Studies where he teaches courses on cyber policy and election security. He previously served as the Executive Director for the University of Chicago Harris Cyber Policy Initiative .
Go to Profile#2835
Huang Kuo-chang
#105809
Overall Influence
1973 - Present (51 years)
Huang Kuo-chang is a Taiwanese politician, activist, legal scholar, researcher and writer. He is one of the lead figures of the Sunflower Student Movement and joined the New Power Party shortly afterwards. He served as leader of the party from 2015 to 2019, and represented New Taipei City of Xizhi District in the Legislative Yuan on behalf of the NPP between 2016 and 2020. In 2023, he joined the Taiwan People's Party.
Go to Profile#2836
Doris Fuchs
#116012
Overall Influence
1966 - Present (58 years)
Doris Fuchs is a German Political Scientist and Professor of International Relations and Sustainable Development at the University of Münster. Fuchs received her Ph.D. in Political Science & Economics at Claremont Graduate University in California and completed her Habilitation at the University of Munich. She was a lecturer and researcher at the University of Michigan, Louisiana State University, the University of Munich, the HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management as well as the University of Stuttgart.
Go to Profile#2837
Robert B. Reich
#149653
Overall Influence
#2838
Graeme Moodie
#87058
Overall Influence
1924 - 2007 (83 years)
Graeme Cochrane Moodie was the founding professor in 1963 of the Department of Politics at the University of York. He is most notable as principal author of The Moodie Report, which set out what is now the general model for student participation in the governance of modern British universities, and The Government of Great Britain , regarded as a classic in its field and a standard textbook for students of British politics.
Go to Profile#2839
Mel Sta. Maria
#66279
Overall Influence
1957 - Present (67 years)
Melencio Santos Sta. Maria Jr. is a Filipino lawyer, law professor, and television & radio presenter. He has been the dean of Far Eastern University's law school since 2013. He has also been teaching at his alma mater, the Ateneo School of Law, since 1986.
Go to Profile#2840
José Ramón Montero
#114479
Overall Influence
1948 - Present (76 years)
José Ramón Montero is a professor of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Madrid and at the Centro de Estudios Avanzados en Ciencias Sociales, Juan March Institute, Madrid. He obtained his Ph.D. in Law at the Universidad de Santiago, and has taught at the Universities of Granada, Santiago, Zaragoza, Cádiz and Complutense de Madrid.
Go to Profile#2841
Holli Semetko
#126761
Overall Influence
1958 - Present (66 years)
Holli Semetko, frequently published as Holli A. Semetko, is a comparative political scientist, currently serving as the Asa Griggs Candler professor of media and international affairs at Emory University. She served as Emory University's Vice Provost for International Affairs, Director of the Office of International Affairs, and the Director of the Claus M. Halle Institute for Global Learning from 2003-13. In a 2019 study on the top 400 most-cited authors in political science, Semetko was named among the top 40 most cited women in political science. Semetko's current research focuses on socia...
Go to Profile#2842
Joseph Marko
#101184
Overall Influence
1955 - Present (69 years)
Joseph Marko is an Austrian legal scholar and political scientist. Education and career Marko completed his studies in law and English at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz with a Dr. jur. and a MA in English translational sciences in 1977. After post-graduate studies in political sciences and sociology at the University of Munich, he returned to Graz, filling the position of an assistant professor at the Faculty of Law. In 1994, Marko earned a Doctorate of Science for Austrian and Comparative Public Law, the Theory of State and Law and Political Sciences and became Associate Professor.
Go to Profile#2843
Andrew Natsios
#99354
Overall Influence
1949 - Present (75 years)
Andrew S. Natsios is an American public servant and Republican politician originally from Massachusetts, who served in a number of positions in the administrations of Governor Paul Cellucci and President of the United States George W. Bush.
Go to Profile#2844
Aristide R. Zolberg
#150297
Overall Influence
#2845
Kuniko Inoguchi
#106888
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
Kuniko Inoguchi is a Japanese political scientist and politician. She served as Japan's first Minister of State for Gender Equality and Social Affairs from 2005 to 2006, and is currently a member of the House of Councillors representing Chiba Prefecture for the Liberal Democratic Party.
Go to Profile#2846
José Antonio Ocampo
#83853
Overall Influence
1952 - Present (72 years)
José Antonio Ocampo Gaviria is a Colombian writer, economist and academic who was the professor of professional practice in international and public affairs and director of the Economic and Political Development Concentration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University from July 2007 to August 2022. Prior to his appointment, Ocampo served in a number of positions in the United Nations and the Government of Colombia, most notably in the United Nations as Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs and Executive Secretary for the Economic Commission for ...
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Warren G. Harding
#80998
Overall Influence
1921 - 2005 (84 years)
Warren Glenn Harding Sr. was an American politician from the state of Texas, a member of the Democratic Party who served as Texas State Treasurer from 1977 to 1983. He was preceded in office by Jesse James and succeeded by Ann Richards.
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Steven Ravett Brown
#150416
Overall Influence
#2849
Timothy M. Shaw
#142712
Overall Influence
1945 - Present (79 years)
Timothy M. Shaw is an England-born Canadian political scientist whose research interests include International Political Economy, Global South, development studies and regionalism in Africa and the Caribbean. He is Associate Research Fellow at United Nations University, and Adjunct Research Professor at Carleton University, University of Ottawa and University of Massachusetts Boston. Shaw was Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London where he remains Professor Emeritus.
Go to Profile#2850
Lawrence B. Mohr
#143245
Overall Influence
1931 - Present (93 years)
Lawrence B. Mohr is an American political scientist and Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Public Policy in the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He served on the University of Michigan's faculty from 1966 until retiring on May 31, 1999. Previously, he was half of the folk/blues musical duo Odetta and Larry, along with Odetta, whom he first met in 1953.
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