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Jack H. Knott

Gale and Ira Drukier Dean

Jack H. Knott serves as the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. 

Before joining NYU, he served as the Dean of the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California, where he held the C. Erwin and Ione L. Piper Chair in Public Policy and Management. Prior to USC, Dean Knott served as Professor and Director of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at the University of Illinois and of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University.  He founded the MSU Survey Research Center and helped establish the Michigan Political Leadership Program. Dean Knott was also a visiting faculty member at Warrick University in the United Kingdom and a Fellow at the International Institute of Management in Berlin, Germany.

Dean Knott has published three books, numerous peer-reviewed, journal articles, and several policy reports. His areas of expertise include political institutions and public policy, political economy, and public management. He has served as the principal investigator on numerous research grants and has consulted with foundations and nonprofit organizations on program evaluation and public policy, including the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the California Endowment.  He currently serves on the editorial boards of two journals in comparative public management and policy.

Among his awards, he is an elected fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and is a past President of the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA).  In addition, he has served as a member of the Educational Advisory Panel, U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), Washington D.C., a member of the Endowment Board of the American Society for Public Administration, and a member of the Board of Price Philanthropies foundation.

Dean Knott received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, his M.A. from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at The Johns Hopkins University, and his undergraduate degree from Calvin University. 

Selected Publications

  • “Governance and the Economy in Asia and the United States: Institutions, Instruments, and Reform,” Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration (March 2016)
  • “The President, Congress, and the Financial Crisis: Ideology and Moral Hazard in Economic Governance,” Presidential Studies Quarterly (spring 2012) 
  • “Federalist Paper 10: Are Factions the Problem in Creating Democratic Accountability in the Public Interest,” Public Administration Review (fall, 2011)
  • “When Ambition Checks Ambition: Bureaucratic Trustees and the Separation of Powers,” American Review of Public Administration (fall, 2008) (awarded Best Article of the Year for 2008), with Gary J. Miller.  
  • “State Governance Structures and the Performance of Public Universities,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (fall, 2003), with Abigail Payne,
  • "Who Controls the Bureaucracy? Presidential Power, Congressional Dominance, Legal Constraints, and Bureaucratic Autonomy in a Model of Multi-Institutional Policy Making," Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 12, 1 (spring, 1996), with Thomas Hammond.
  • "Comparing Public Versus Private Management: Coordination and Principal-Agent Relations," Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 1, 3 (January 1993) 93-119.
  • "The Deregulatory Snowball: Explaining Deregulation in the Financial Industry," Journal of Politics, 50, 1 (February 1988) 3 30, with Thomas Hammond.