Search People Result | Academic Influence

Find the most influential people in 24 academic disciplines and numerous subdisciplines

Find famous and important people related to your research. This is an excellent tool for research papers, topic papers, and building a bibliography. Using our influence-based algorithm, our rankings synthesize data from Wikipedia, Wikidata, Semantic Scholar, and CrossRef.

Students and researchers now have a fast and reliable way to find influential thinkers from 24 disciplines and 300 sub-disciplines (and growing). If you want to find history’s most influential philsosophers, or the world’s most influential mathematicians currently, now you can.

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School

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Subdiscipline

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List of the most influential people in Political Science,

#301

Robert Pape

#4977

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Robert Anthony Pape Jr. is an American political scientist who studies national and international security affairs, with a focus on air power, American and international political violence, social media propaganda, and terrorism. He is currently a professor of political science at the University of Chicago and founder and director of the Chicago Project on Security and Threats .

#302

Federico Mayor Zaragoza

#3777

Overall Influence

1934 - Present (90 years)

Federico Mayor Zaragoza is a scientist, scholar, politician, diplomat, and poet from Spain. He served as the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization from 1987 to 1999. After his tenure as Director-General, he continued to participate in various peace-related organizations such as the Foundation for a Culture of Peace and the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World, as a member of their honorary boards. Additionally, he serves as the honorary chairman of the Académie de la Pai...

#303

Claus Offe

#6755

Overall Influence

1940 - Present (84 years)

Claus Offe is a political sociologist of Marxist orientation. He received his PhD from the University of Frankfurt and his Habilitation at the University of Konstanz. In Germany, he has held chairs for Political Science and Political Sociology at the Universities of Bielefeld and Bremen , as well as at the Humboldt-University of Berlin . He has worked as fellow and visiting professor at the Institutes for Advanced Study in Stanford, Princeton, and the Australian National University as well as Harvard University, the University of California at Berkeley and The New School University, New York.

#304

Ernesto Laclau

#1023

Overall Influence

1935 - 2014 (79 years)

Ernesto Laclau was an Argentine political theorist and philosopher. He is often described as an 'inventor' of post-Marxist political theory. He is well known for his collaborations with his long-term partner, Chantal Mouffe.

#305

Michael Dukakis

Michael Dukakis

#3296

Overall Influence

1933 - Present (91 years)

Michael Stanley Dukakis is an American retired lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts from 1975 to 1979 and again from 1983 to 1991. He is the longest-serving governor in Massachusetts history and only the second Greek-American governor in U.S. history, after Spiro Agnew. He was nominated by the Democratic Party for president in the 1988 election, losing to the Republican nominee, Vice President George H. W. Bush.

#306

Sheri Berman

#5793

Overall Influence

1965 - Present (59 years)

Sheri E. Berman is a Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. She is the author of scholarly books and articles on European social democracy, fascism, populism and the development of democracies and dictatorships.

#307

Ngaire Woods

#9329

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Ngaire Tui Woods CBE is the founding dean of the Blavatnik School of Government and professor of Global Economic Governance at the University of Oxford. She founded the Global Economic Governance Programme and is the co-founder of the Oxford–Princeton Global Leaders Fellowship programme. She was born in New Zealand.

#308

Peter Berkowitz

#4550

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Peter Berkowitz is an American political scientist, former law professor, and United States Department of State employee, most recently serving as the Director of Policy Planning at the United States Department of State. He currently serves as the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University.

#309

Morton Halperin

#8641

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Morton H. Halperin is an American analyst who deals with U.S. foreign policy, arms control, civil liberties, and the workings of bureaucracies. He served in the Johnson, Nixon, Clinton, and Obama administrations. He has taught at Harvard University and as a visitor at other universities including Columbia, George Washington University, and Yale.

#310

Ernest Wamba dia Wamba

#15822

Overall Influence

1942 - 2020 (78 years)

Ernest Wamba dia Wamba was a prominent Congolese academic and political theorist who became a commander of the Kisangani faction of the rebel Rally for Congolese Democracy during the Second Congo War.

#311

Michael W. Doyle

#7645

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Michael W. Doyle is an American international relations scholar who is a theorist of the liberal "democratic peace" and author of Liberalism and World Politics. He has also written on the comparative history of empires and the evaluation of UN peace-keeping. He is a University professor of International Affairs, Law and Political Science at Columbia University - School of International and Public Affairs. He is the former director of Columbia Global Policy Initiative. He co-directs the Center on Global Governance at Columbia Law School.

#312

Dominique Reynié

#10533

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Dominique Reynié is a French academic. He is a professor of political science at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris . Biography Education Dominique Reynié graduated from Sciences Po Paris in 1983, where he also presented a master thesis in political science in 1984. In 1994, within the same institution, he became a doctor of political science. His thesis was directed by Jean Leca, on the theme: The Democratic Order: The Practical Foundations of a Democratic-type Mass Policy. He earned his Agrégation of political science in 1997.

#313

Bertell Ollman

#5066

Overall Influence

1935 - Present (89 years)

Bertell Ollman is a professor of politics at New York University. He teaches both dialectical methodology and socialist theory. He is the author of several academic works relating to Marxist theory.

#314

Yehezkel Dror

#23500

Overall Influence

1928 - Present (96 years)

Yehezkel Dror is a professor emeritus of political science at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Biography Arthur Yehezkel Dror was born in Vienna, Austria. He immigrated to Mandate Palestine with his family in 1938. He graduated from the Hebrew Reali School in Haifa in 1946.

#315

Susan Waltz

#17171

Overall Influence

Susan E. Waltz is an American political scientist and faculty member at the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy. Waltz is also involved with Amnesty International, having served as chair of its International Executive Committee from 1996 to 1998. From 2009 to 2013 she served as a board member at Amnesty's U.S. branch.

#316

Ben Shapiro

#2695

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (40 years)

Benjamin Aaron Shapiro is an American lawyer, columnist, author, and conservative political commentator. Shapiro writes columns for Creators Syndicate, Newsweek, and Ami Magazine, and serves as editor emeritus for The Daily Wire, which he co-founded in 2015. Shapiro is the host of The Ben Shapiro Show, a daily political podcast and live radio show. He was editor-at-large of Breitbart News from 2012 until his resignation in 2016. Shapiro has authored sixteen books.

#317

Paul Pierson

#15158

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

#318

Sheldon Wolin

#6786

Overall Influence

1922 - 2015 (93 years)

Sheldon Sanford Wolin was an American political theorist and writer on contemporary politics. A political theorist for fifty years, Wolin became Professor of Politics, Emeritus, at Princeton University, where he taught from 1973 to 1987.

#319

Jane Mansbridge

Jane Mansbridge

#6130

Overall Influence

1939 - Present (85 years)

Jane Jebb Mansbridge is an American political scientist. She is the Charles F. Adams Professor of Political Leadership and Democratic Values in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

#320

Richard Rosecrance

#15712

Overall Influence

1930 - Present (94 years)

Richard Newton Rosecrance is an American political scientist. His research and teaching is focused on international relations, in particular the link between economics and international relations. His research and writing has also touched upon the study of history. Rosecrance is considered an adherent of liberal international relations theory.

#321

Viktor Yushchenko

#6545

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a Ukrainian politician who was the third president of Ukraine from 23 January 2005 to 25 February 2010. He aimed to orient Ukraine towards the West, towards the European Union and NATO.

#322

Sara Roy

#9322

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Sara M. Roy is an American Zona, Magiila Vemehoeret. Zona shel ARAVIM. political economist and scholar. She is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.

#323

Robert Entman

#14569

Overall Influence

1950 - Present (74 years)

Robert Mathew Entman is the J.B. and M.C. Shapiro Professor of Media and Public Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University. Education Entman earned his A.B. in political science from Duke University, his M.P.P. in Public Policy Analysis from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University, where he was a National Science Foundation Fellow.

#324

Chandran Kukathas

#4687

Overall Influence

1957 - Present (67 years)

Chandran Kukathas is a Malaysian-born Australian political theorist and the author of several books. Until 2019 he was Head of the Department of Government at the London School of Economics, where he held a Chair in Political Theory.

#325

Janice Stein

#15851

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Janice Gross Stein is a Canadian political scientist and international relations expert. Stein is a specialist in Middle East area studies; negotiation theory; foreign policy decision-making; and international conflict management.

#326

Nnamdi Azikiwe

#7733

Overall Influence

1904 - 1996 (92 years)

Nnamdi Benjamin Azikiwe, , usually referred to as "Zik", was a Nigerian statesman and political leader who served as the 3rd governor-general of Nigeria between 1960 and 1963 and the 1st president of Nigeria during the First Nigerian Republic which existed from 1963 to 1966. Considered a driving force behind the nation's independence, he came to be known as the "father of Nigerian nationalism".

#327

Ernesto Zedillo

#7063

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León is a Mexican economist and politician. He was the 61st president of Mexico from 1 December 1994 to 30 November 2000, as the last of the uninterrupted 71-year line of Mexican presidents from the Institutional Revolutionary Party .

#328

Joseph Massad

#5789

Overall Influence

1963 - Present (61 years)

Joseph Andoni Massad is a Jordanian academic specializing in Middle Eastern studies, who serves as Professor of Modern Arab Politics and Intellectual History in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. His academic work has focused on Palestinian, Jordanian, and Israeli nationalism.

#329

Gerardo L. Munck

#13520

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Gerardo L. Munck is a political scientist specializing in comparative politics. He is professor of political science and international relations at the University of Southern California. Career Munck earned his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of New Hampshire, a master's in Latin American studies at Stanford University, and his PhD in political science from the University of California, San Diego . Munck was a professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign between 1990 and 2002, before moving to the University of Southern California .

#330

Maria Lipman

#10010

Overall Influence

1952 - Present (72 years)

Maria Alexandrovna Lipman is a Russian journalist, political scientist and Russia expert, who edited the magazine of the Carnegie Moscow Center until 2014. She is a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University and Co-Editor of the Institute’s website Russia.Post. She also writes for Foreign Affairs.

#331

Ali Mazrui

#3935

Overall Influence

1933 - 2014 (81 years)

Ali Al'amin Mazrui , was a Kenyan-born American academic, professor, and political writer on African and Islamic studies, and North-South relations. He was born in Mombasa, Kenya. His positions included Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York, and Director of the Center for Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan. He produced the 1980s television documentary series The Africans: A Triple Heritage.

#332

Francis Deng

#8348

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Francis Mading Deng is a politician and diplomat from South Sudan who served as the newly independent country's first ambassador to the United Nations from 2012 to July 2016. Life and career Deng was educated at University of Khartoum and Master of Laws and earned a Doctor of Juridical Science from Yale University. He also took graduate courses at King's College London.

#333

Daniel W. Drezner

Daniel W. Drezner

#5396

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Daniel W. Drezner is an American political scientist. He is known for his scholarship and commentary on International Relations and International Political Economy. He is professor of international politics at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He is also a nonresident senior fellow at the Project on International Order and Strategy at the Brookings Institution.

#334

Clive Hamilton

#4691

Overall Influence

1953 - Present (71 years)

Clive Charles Hamilton AM FRSA is an Australian public intellectual currently serving as Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University. He is a member of the Board of the Climate Change Authority of the Australian Government, and is the Founder and former Executive Director of The Australia Institute. He regularly appears in the Australian media and contributes to public policy debates. Hamilton was granted the award of Member of the Order of Australia on 8 June 2009 for "service ...

#335

Marc Trachtenberg

#12588

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Marc Trachtenberg is a professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received his Ph.D in History from the University of California, Berkeley in 1974 and taught for many years for the history department at the University of Pennsylvania before coming to UCLA.

#336

Dilma Rousseff

#6957

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Dilma Vana Rousseff is a Brazilian economist and politician who served as the 36th president of Brazil, holding the position from 2011 until her impeachment and removal from office on 31 August 2016. She is the first woman to have held the Brazilian presidency and had previously served as chief of staff to former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from 2005 to 2010. She has been chair of the New Development Bank since March 2023.

#337

Peter Dale Scott

Peter Dale Scott

#6560

Overall Influence

1929 - Present (95 years)

Peter Dale Scott is a Canadian-born poet, academic, and former diplomat. A son of the Canadian poet and constitutional lawyer F. R. Scott and painter Marian Dale Scott, he is best known for his critiques of deep politics and American foreign policy since the era of the Vietnam War. Notably, he was a signatory in 1968 of the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest" pledge, in which participants vowed to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. Although trained as a political scientist, Scott holds an atypical academic appointment as a poet-scholar in an English department.

#338

Terry Karl

#14953

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Terry Lynn Karl is the Gildred Professor of Latin American Studies and Professor of Political Science specializing in comparative politics in the Political Science Department at Stanford University.

#339

Gerhard Lehmbruch

#26227

Overall Influence

1928 - 2022 (94 years)

Gerhard Lehmbruch was a member of the University of Konstanz. Lehmbruch received a doctorate and a Habilitation in Political Science from the University of Tübingen. Thereafter, he was professor at the universities of Heidelberg, Tübingen and Konstanz, from 1969 to 1996.

#340

Jodi Dean

#4811

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Jodi Dean is an American political theorist and professor in the Political Science department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in New York state. She held the Donald R. Harter ’39 Professorship of the Humanities and Social Sciences from 2013 to 2018. Dean has also held the position of Erasmus Professor of the Humanities in the Faculty of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. She is the author and editor of thirteen books. Her most recent book is titled Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging .

#341

Martha Finnemore

#5389

Overall Influence

1959 - Present (65 years)

Martha Finnemore is an American constructivist scholar of international relations, and University Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University. She is considered among the most influential international relations scholars. Her scholarship has highlighted the role of norms and culture in international politics, as well as shown that international organizations are consequential and purposive social agents in world politics that can shape state interests.

#342

Peter H. Russell

#9550

Overall Influence

1932 - Present (92 years)

Peter Howard Russell is a Canadian political scientist, serving as professor emeritus of political science at the University of Toronto, where he taught from 1958 to 1997. He was a member of the Toronto chapter of Alpha Delta Phi. He was the Principal of Innis College, at the University of Toronto, from 1973 to 1978. He is the author of several books including: Two Cheers for Minority Government: The Evolution of Canadian Parliamentary Democracy, Constitutional Odyssey: Can Canadians Become a Sovereign People?, Recognizing Aboriginal Title: The Mabo Case and Indigenous Resistance to English ...

#343

Parag Khanna

#11294

Overall Influence

1977 - Present (47 years)

Parag Khanna is an Indian-American specialist in geopolitics and globalization. He is the managing partner of FutureMap, and former managing partner of Hybrid Reality as well as Co-Founder & CEO of Factotum.

#344

Archie Brown

#9974

Overall Influence

1938 - Present (86 years)

Archibald Haworth Brown, is a British political scientist. In 2005, he became an emeritus professor of politics at the University of Oxford and an emeritus fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford, where he served as a professor of politics and director of St Antony's Russian and East European Centre. He has written widely on Soviet and Russian politics, on communist politics more generally, on the Cold War, and on political leadership.

#345

Fawaz Gerges

#7926

Overall Influence

1958 - Present (66 years)

Fawaz A. Gerges is a Lebanese-American academic and author with expertise on the Middle East, U.S. foreign policy, international relations, Al Qaeda, and relations between the Islamic and Western worlds.

#346

Bruce Ackerman

#4852

Overall Influence

1943 - Present (81 years)

Bruce Arnold Ackerman is an American legal scholar who serves as a Sterling Professor at Yale Law School. In 2010, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers. Ackerman was also among the unranked bottom 40 in the 2020 Prospect list of the top 50 thinkers for the COVID-19 era.

#347

Mahmood Mamdani

Mahmood Mamdani

#8267

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Mahmood Mamdani, FBA is an Indian-born Ugandan academic, author, and political commentator. He currently serves as the Chancellor of Kampala International University, Uganda. He was the director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research from 2010 until February 2022, the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University and the Professor of Anthropology, Political Science and African Studies at Columbia University.

#348

Carol Cohn

#10333

Overall Influence

Carol Cohn is the founding director of the Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights and a Lecturer of Women's Studies at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Cohn is recognised for addressing issues of gender in global politics, particularly conflict and security issues. She has published in academic and policy contexts with major research interests lying in the realm of gender and armed conflict, the gendered discourses of US national security elites and gender mainstreaming in international security institutions. In addition to her research, Cohn facilitates training and workshops ...

#349

Michael E. O'Hanlon

Michael E. O'Hanlon

#12343

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Michael Edward O'Hanlon is the director of research and senior fellow of the foreign policy program at The Brookings Institution. He began his career as a budget analyst in the defense field. Biography

#350

Rounaq Jahan

#10592

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

Rounaq Jahan is a Bangladeshi political scientist, feminist leader and author. A former faculty of the University of Dhaka, Jahan teaches and researches at the Columbia University since 1990. She was a representative of Bangladesh to the 32nd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1977. She founded Women for Women, one of the first feminist research centres in Bangladesh, in 1973, and is the director of Research Initiatives Bangladesh .

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