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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Search Influential People

Person Name

School

Gender

Country

Discipline

Subdiscipline

Ranking

List of the most influential people in Political Science,

#3001

Ruth Kinna

#69026

Overall Influence

1961 - Present (63 years)

Ruth Ellen Kinna is a professor of political philosophy at Loughborough University, working in the Department of Politics, History and International Relations. Since 2007 she has been the editor of the journal Anarchist Studies.

#3002

Per Stig Møller

#93201

Overall Influence

1942 - Present (82 years)

Per Stig Møller is a Danish politician. He was a member of the Folketing for the Conservative People's Party from 1984 until 2015, and was Minister for the Environment from 18 December 1990 to 24 January 1993 as part of the Cabinet of Poul Schlüter IV and Foreign Minister from 27 November 2001 to 23 February 2010 as part of the Cabinet of Anders Fogh Rasmussen I, II and III, and the first Cabinet of Lars Løkke Rasmussen. From 23 February 2010 to 3 October 2011 he was Minister for Culture.

#3003

Thomas H. Lee

#162856

Overall Influence

#3004

Christopher K. Ansell

#162857

Overall Influence

#3005

Alan Dupont

#105609

Overall Influence

Alan Anthony Dupont is an Australian international security expert, Defence and National Security Advocate for the Northern Territory and company director who has been the CEO of geopolitical risk consultancy the Cognoscenti Group since 2016. He is also contributing national security editor for The Australian newspaper, adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales , a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, and the Lowy Institute in Sydney and a fellow at the Hinrich Foundation.

#3006

Antonio Gramsci

#162977

Overall Influence

#3007

Jerome J. Shestack

Jerome J. Shestack

#75758

Overall Influence

1923 - 2011 (88 years)

Jerome Joseph "Jerry" Shestack was a Philadelphia lawyer and human rights advocate active in Democratic Party politics who served as president of the American Bar Association from 1997 to 1998. He chaired the International League for Human Rights for twenty years, and was appointed the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1979 to 1980 by President Jimmy Carter. Shestack was regularly listed on the National Law Journal's list of the 100 most influential U.S. lawyers. He had multiple grandchildren the youngest being Andrew Justice Doss.

#3008

Susan Thomson

#111388

Overall Influence

1968 - Present (56 years)

Susan Michelle Thomson is a Canadian human rights lawyer and professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University. She worked in Rwanda for years in various capacities and is known for her books focusing on the post-genocide history of the country, which have received good reviews. Although she initially supported the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front , Thomson later reevaluated her position.

#3009

Moshe Berent

#86453

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Moshe Berent is a former Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Political Science and Communication at the Open University of Israel. Berent received a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering from Technion in Haifa, Master's Degree in Philosophy under Prof. Joseph Agassi at Tel Aviv University, and a Ph.D. in Comparative Political History from the University of Cambridge. Berent's mentors include the sociologist and researcher of nationalism Ernest Gellner.

#3010

Ofer Cassif

#117079

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Ofer Cassif is an Israeli politician. A member of the Knesset since April 2019, he represents Hadash. Biography Cassif was born in Rishon LeZion. He attended Shalmon Elementary School and the Reali Gymnasium. Growing up in a Mapai-supporting household, he joined the Left Camp of Israel youth group at the age of 16. During his military service in the Israel Defense Forces, he served in the Nahal and the Nahal paratrooper brigade. He studied philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and earned a PhD in political philosophy at the London School of Economics with a thesis titled On nationa...

#3011

Grigory Yudin

#26820

Overall Influence

1983 - Present (41 years)

Grigory Borisovich Yudin, also known as Greg Yudin , is a Russian political scientist and sociologist. Yudin is an expert in public opinion and polling in Russia. He is columnist for the newspaper Vedomosti and the online magazine Republic, as well as the website Proekt. He has also written for Open Democracy.

#3012

Mark A. Pollack

#163719

Overall Influence

#3013

Graham Walker

#63075

Overall Influence

Graham Hewitt Walker is an American academic, professor, and Senior Research Scholar at the Witherspoon Institute. Walker received his Ph.D. in political philosophy from Notre Dame in 1988. He is a former administration in Christian higher education, serving as the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Oklahoma Wesleyan University as well as the second President of Patrick Henry College. Walker has previously taught at the University of Pennsylvania, The Catholic University of America and Patrick Henry College.

#3014

Thomas M. Carsey

#108375

Overall Influence

1966 - 2018 (52 years)

Thomas M. Carsey was an American political scientist. Carsey earned his bachelor's and master's degree from Wayne State College before receiving a Ph.D from Indiana University Bloomington. He began teaching at University of Illinois at Chicago, then joined the faculty of Florida State University in 2000. He was named the Thomas J. Pearsall Distinguished Professor in political science at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. The Thomas M. Carsey Scholarship in Data Science at UNC was named for him. Carsey died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, aged 52, on February 21, 2018.

#3015

Maia Panjikidze

Maia Panjikidze

#84953

Overall Influence

1960 - Present (64 years)

Maia Panjikidze is a Georgian diplomat and politician. Formerly a teacher of German, she joined the Georgian diplomatic service in 1994 and was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the cabinet of Bidzina Ivanishvili on October 25, 2012. She resigned November 5, 2014 in protest of Irakli Alasania being relieved of his position as Minister of Defense.

#3016

Michael Vocino

#125570

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Michael Vocino is an American professor at the University of Rhode Island where he was a former Director of Libraries, Interim Dean of Libraries, and served as Collection Management Officer. As of 2010, he serves as the University of Rhode Island Libraries gift librarian. Vocino also held a joint appointment in the political science department and since 1999 holds a joint appointment in the film/media program where he teaches courses in film history and film media. He did undergraduate work at Boston University where he took courses with Howard Zinn. He did his graduate work at the University of Rhode Island and the Universiteit van Amsterdam.

#3017

Jeremy Travis

#29302

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Jeremy Travis is an American academic administrator who served as the fourth president of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a senior college of the City University of New York, starting on August 16, 2004. On October 25, 2016, Travis announced that he would step down from his position as president the next year. In August 2017, he joined the Arnold Ventures LLC as Senior Vice President of Criminal Justice.

#3018

Hannu Nurmi

#164336

Overall Influence

1944 - Present (80 years)

#3019

Douglas Rivers

#80371

Overall Influence

Douglas Rivers is an American political scientist. He is Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. He also served as the president and CEO of YouGov/Polimetrix and is currently the global polling firm's chief scientist.

#3020

Richard Iton

#131172

Overall Influence

1961 - 2013 (52 years)

Richard Iton was a professor of African American studies at Northwestern University, known for his work on the ways black popular culture forged community and affected politics. Born in Montreal, Quebec, Iton attended Selwyn House School, Marianopolis College and McGill University . He obtained his PhD at Johns Hopkins University in 1994 and taught at the University of Toronto before joining the political science department at Northwestern.

#3021

George Marshall

#52404

Overall Influence

1904 - 2000 (96 years)

George Marshall was an American economist, political activist, and conservationist. He was an early leader of The Wilderness Society, a HUAC abolitionist, and later a leader of the Sierra Club. Early life and education George Marshall was the son of Louis Marshall, noted constitutional lawyer, supporter of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, and co-founder of the American Jewish Committee, and Florence Lowenstein. George grew up in Manhattan with his sister Ruth and brothers James and Robert AKA Bob. All four children attended Felix Adler's Ethical Culture School. Marshall continued his education at Columbia University, where he earned bachelor's and Master's degrees.

#3022

Dustin H. Tingley

#164839

Overall Influence

#3023

Hal G. Rainey

#164857

Overall Influence

#3024

Laurence Lynn Jr.

#151714

Overall Influence

1937 - Present (87 years)

Laurence E. Lynn Jr. was the Sid Richardson Research Professor at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin and Professor of Public Management at the University of Manchester's Business School. From 2002 to 2007, he was the George H. W. Bush Chair and Professor of Public Affairs at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University.

#3025

Monica McWilliams

#105947

Overall Influence

1954 - Present (70 years)

Monica Mary McWilliams is a Northern Irish academic, peace activist, human rights defender and former politician in Northern Ireland. In 1996, she co-founded the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition political party and was elected as a delegate at the Multi-Party Peace Negotiations, which led to the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998.

#3026

Marion Orr

#87070

Overall Influence

Marion E. Orr is an American political scientist, currently the Frederick Lippitt Professor of Public Policy and a professor of political science and urban studies at Brown University. Orr specializes in education reform in the United States, urban politics, Latino politics, and African-American politics.

#3027

Kathleen Staudt

#138708

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Kathleen Staudt is a former professor of political science at the University of Texas at El Paso, where she held an endowed professorship for western hemispheric trade policy studies. Her courses focused on topics such as public policy, borders, democracy, leadership and civic engagement, and women and politics. After retiring on September 1, 2017, she became Professor Emerita.

#3028

Elizabeth Zechmeister

#138641

Overall Influence

1972 - Present (52 years)

Elizabeth Jean Zechmeister is an American political scientist and Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University, noted for her research on comparative political behavior, public opinion, Latin American politics, and terrorism studies.

#3029

Pamela Conover

#139182

Overall Influence

Pamela Johnston Conover is an American political scientist. In 2007 she was named the Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She studies political behavior and political psychology, with particular focuses on women and politics as well as political media studies.

#3030

Jonathan Tonge

#113942

Overall Influence

1962 - Present (62 years)

Jonathan Tonge is an academic based in the Department of Politics Studies at the University of Liverpool. In 2008-9 he was chair of the British Youth Citizenship Commission. In 2012 Tonge and Professor Philip Cowley became co-editors of the Parliamentary Affairs academic journal.

#3031

L. H. M. Ling

#140449

Overall Influence

1955 - 2018 (63 years)

L. H. M. "Lily" Ling was a political theorist and scholar whose work focused around the theory of worldism within international relations. Much of her work draws from storytelling, the arts, and non-Western culture to present alternative versions of historical analysis of global affairs. She was Professor of International Affairs at The New School at the time of her death.

#3032

Karen Stenner

#88459

Overall Influence

Karen Stenner is a political scientist specializing in political psychology. Stenner has studied the political activation of authoritarian personality types, and how that activation explains the contemporary success of some authoritarian political figures as well as enduring conflicts between some individuals and the broad tolerance that characterizes liberal democracy.

#3033

A. Territories Paasi

#165789

Overall Influence

#3034

John Lapinski

#149533

Overall Influence

John Lapinski is the Robert A. Fox Professor of Political Science, Faculty Director of the Robert A. Fox Leadership Program and the Director of the Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies at University of Pennsylvania. He also serves as the Faculty Director for the Executive Masters of Public Administration program within the Fels Institute of Government.

#3035

Lawrence Fuchs

#74016

Overall Influence

1927 - 2013 (86 years)

Lawrence Howard Fuchs was an American academic and author. He was a scholar of American studies and an expert on immigration policy who founded the American studies department at Brandeis University, where he was the Meyer and Walter Jaffe Professor of American Civilization and Politics.

#3036

Juan J. (juan José) Linz

#166015

Overall Influence

#3037

Sohn Hak-kyu

#103005

Overall Influence

1947 - Present (77 years)

Sohn Hak-kyu is a South Korean politician and the former governor of Gyeonggi-do, the most populous province in Korea. He became a politician in 1996 as a congressman of Grand National Party, and became a governor of Gyeonggi-do in 2002. He was the leader of the liberal Democratic Party. Sohn announced he was running in the 2022 presidential election as an independent candidate, but subsequently withdrew his candidacy.

#3038

Christoph Deutschmann

#43817

Overall Influence

1946 - Present (78 years)

Christoph Deutschmann is a German sociologist. He currently holds a professorship at the University of Tübingen. Deutschmann studied sociology as a major, with economics and law as minors, at the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main, graduating in 1973 and earning his PhD there in 1975. From 1976 to 1984, he worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Social Research, home of the Frankfurt School and Critical Theory. In 1987, he habilitated in the Social Sciences at Goethe University Frankfurt. Since 1989, he is professor for Social and Behavioural Sciences in Tübingen.

#3039

Frances Fox Piven

#166265

Overall Influence

#3040

Steven E. Finkel

#166298

Overall Influence

#3041

Göran Hydén

#166386

Overall Influence

#3042

Stefano Ponte

#166425

Overall Influence

#3043

Wendy J. Schiller

#132250

Overall Influence

1964 - Present (60 years)

Wendy J. Schiller is the Royce Family Professor of Teaching Excellence in Political Science at Brown University. She is a Faculty Fellow at Brown's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, where she also serves as Director of the A. Alfred Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy.

#3044

Purnomo Yusgiantoro

#82904

Overall Influence

1951 - Present (73 years)

Purnomo Yusgiantoro is an Indonesian politician. He served as Minister of Defense in the Second United Indonesia Cabinet from 2009 to 2014. Previously, he served as Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources from 2000 to 2009. He also served as secretary-general of OPEC in 2004.

#3045

Lisle C. Carter

#66164

Overall Influence

1925 - 2009 (84 years)

Lisle Carleton Carter Jr. was an American administrator who worked for civic organizations, educational institutions, and the federal government. He was also the first modern President of the University of the District of Columbia following the merger of three DC universities.

#3046

Alfred J. Kahn

#166607

Overall Influence

#3047

Robert George Will

#166624

Overall Influence

#3048

Robert Lepenies

#111961

Overall Influence

1984 - Present (40 years)

Robert Lepenies is a German political scientist and economist, currently employed as the president of the Karlshochschule International University. Life Lepenies studied politics, philosophy, and economics at the University of Oxford, UK, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 2008. He completed his master's degree in International Political Economy at the London School of Economics in 2014. He went on to the Hertie School of Governance Berlin and received his PhD in Political Science with a thesis entitled "Losers in Trade: Economics and Normative Justifications."

#3049

Irene Natividad

#122141

Overall Influence

1948 - Present (76 years)

Irene Natividad is an American feminist, women's rights activist, corporate director, international advocate for women in leadership positions, President of the GlobeWomen Research and Education Institute, a non-profit organization based in Washington, DC whose lead programs include the annual Global Summit of Women and Corporate Women Directors International . She previously served as Chair of the National Women's Political Caucus, Chair of the National Commission on Working Women, Executive Director of the Philippine American Foundation, Founder and President of Asian American Professional...

#3050

Hiram Caton

#40959

Overall Influence

1936 - 2010 (74 years)

Hiram Pendleton Caton III was a professor of politics and history at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, until his retirement. He was an ethicist, a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Biology , and a founding member of the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences. He was an officer of the International Society for Human Ethology. Caton held a National Humanities Fellowship at the National Humanities Center in 1982–83. He was the inaugural Professor of Humanities at Griffith University in Brisbane, and later the Professor of Politics and History and Head of the School of Applied...

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