Muhammad Azfar Nisar is an Associate Professor of Public Policy & Administration at the Suleman Dawood School of Business. His research focuses on issues related to public administration, policy implementation, health policy, gender identity, and governance and has been published widely in top journals of the discipline. His book Governing Thirdness: State, Society and Inclusion of non-binary identities which focused on the identity and citizenship of the Khawaja Sira of Pakistan was published by Cambridge University Press. He is currently an Associate Editor of Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and serves on the editorial board of multiple other international journals.
His research has received multiple awards which include, among others, William E. Mosher and Frederick C. Mosher Award for the best Public Administration Review Article, article of the year award by the Journal Administrative Theory & Praxis, and Best Dissertation Award by the Public and Non-Profit Division of the Academy of Management. His research is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies including ethnographic fieldwork and social network analysis.
Dr. Nisar obtained his PhD in Public Administration and Policy from Arizona State University, USA in 2016. His prior education includes, a Master of Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in International Area Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in Economics from the University of the Punjab, and an MBBS degree from King Edward Medical College, Lahore. Prior to joining LUMS, Dr. Nisar was an officer in the civil service of Pakistan where, as a member of the Pakistan Administrative Service, he served in multiple administrative positions in different parts of the country. He also serves on the Editorial Board of multiple top public management journals and has provided policy advice to multiple local and international organizations.
His current research focuses on decolonizing public administration scholarship, improving public governance, and men and masculinity in Pakistan.
In his spare time, he likes to spend time with family, travel, read and play chess.
Nisar, M. & Masood, A. (In Press 2024). Governance by Artifacts: Theory and Evidence on Materiality of Administrative Burdens. Public Administration Review.
Nisar, M. (2022). Imagining an Otherwise Global Public Administration: Conceptual Reflections. Administration and Society.
Nisar, M. (2022). Repairing the State: Policy Repair in the Frontline Bureaucracy. Public Administration Review.
Nisar, M. (2022). Are all Burdens Bad? Disentangling Illegitimate Administrative Burdens through Public Value Accounting. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration.
Nisar, M. (2022). Decolonization and Public Administration: Frustrated Ramblings of a Spoilsport.. Administrative Theory and Praxis.
Masood, A. & Nisar, M. (2020). Crushed between Two Stones: Competing Institutional Logics in the Implementation of Maternity Leave Policies in Pakistan. Gender, Work & Organization.
Nisar, M. (2020). Standing in the right corner: From practitioner-centric to public-centered public administration. Administrative Theory and Praxis.
Masood, A. & Nisar, M. (2020). Administrative Capital and Citizen Responses to Administrative Burden. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory.
Nisar, M. (2020). Expectation versus reality: Political expediency and implementation of right to information laws. Public Administration Quarterly.
Parasad, A., Centeno, Rhodes, Nisar & Nisar, M. & Taylor (2020). What are men's roles and responsibilities in the feminist project for gender egalitarianism?.. Gender, Work & Organization.
Nisar, M. & Masood, A. (2019). Dealing with disgust: Street-level bureaucrats as agents of Kafkaesque bureaucracy. Organization: the critical journal of organization, theory and society.
Maroulis, S., Diermeier, D. & Nisar, M. (2019). Discovery, dissemination, and information diversity in networked groups. Social Networks.
Masood, A. & Nisar, M. (2019). A Post-Colonial Critique of the Academic Discourse on Far-Right Populism. Organization: the critical journal of organization, theory and society, doi:doi.org/10.1177/1350508419828572.
Nisar, M. (2019). Practitioner as the Imaginary Father of Public Administration: A Psychoanalytic Critique. Administrative Theory and Praxis, doi:doi.org/10.1080/10841806.2019.1589230.
Nisar, M. (2018). Phenomenology of the stop: street-level bureaucracy and everyday citizenship of marginalized groups. International Review of Administrative Sciences.
Nisar, M. (2018). Overcoming resistance to resistance in public administration: Resistance strategies of marginalized publics in citizen-state interactions. Public Administration and Development, 38 (1), 15-25.
Nisar, M. (2018). (Un) Becoming a Man: Legal Consciousness of the Third Gender Category in Pakistan. Gender and Society, 32 (1), 59-81.
Hayter, C. & Nisar, M. (2018). Spurring vaccine development for the developing world: A collaborative governance perspective on Product Development Partnerships.. International Journal of Public Administration, 41 (1), 46-58.
Nisar, M. & Ahsan Rana, M. (2018). Challenges of public sector change management: The case of medicine provision in public hospitals in Punjabof. Journal of Public Affairs Education.
Nisar, M. (2017). Practitioner envy and construction of the other in public administration. Administration and Society, 49 (10), 1403-1423.
Nisar, M. & Maroulis, S. (2017). Foundations of relating: Theory and evidence on the formation of street-level bureaucrats' workplace networks.. Public Administration Review, 77 (6), 829-839.
Nisar, M. (2017). Children of a Lesser God: Administrative Burden and Social Equity in Citizen–State Interactions. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 28 (1), 104-119.
Nisar, M. (2015). Higher education governance and performance based funding as an ecology of games. Higher Education, 69 (2), 289-302.
Nisar, M. & Rana, M. (2018). Revamping the Drug Testing System in Punjab: Public Management Challenges in a Multilevel Governance Framework, Published. Case Research Center, LUMS, LUMS No. 16-176-2018-1, (pp. 12), Case Research Unit, LUMS.
Nisar, M. & Masood, A. (2018). Solving A Sticky Problem: Provision of Doctors In Underdeveloped Areas Of Punjab, Published. Case Research Center, LUMS, LUMS No. 16-313-2018-2, Case Research Unit, LUMS.
Nisar, M. (2022). Fabricated Identities: Legal Identity Construction of the Third Gender in Pakistan, Accepted. State and Subject Formation in South Asia.
Nisar, M. & Chris, H. (2017). Product Development Partnerships: Collaborative Multi- Sector Regimes to Accelerate Vaccine Development, Published. Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance., Springer.
Nisar, M. (2023). Guilt Bound: The Construction of Precarious Masculinity in Pakistan.
Nisar, M. (2022). Governing Thirdness: State, Society, and Non-Binary Identities in Pakistan, Cambridge University Press.
Nisar, M. (2019). God, Hybrids and the Muslim Shower: Towards a Crooked Queer Theory in Organization Studies. 11th International Critical Management Studies Conference, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.
Nisar, M. & Masood, A. (2019). Playing with tools of the master: A postcolonial critique of administrative and development reforms in Pakistan. 11th International Critical Management Studies Conference, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.
Masood, A. & Nisar, M. (2019). Queering Work in Medical Profession in Pakistan.. 11th International Critical Management Studies Conference,, Milton Keynes, United Kingdom.
Nisar, M. & Masood, A. (2019). Theorizing Synergy: An Integrated Framework of Red Tape, Green Tape and Administrative Burden.. 23rd Annual International Research Society for Public Management Conference, Wellington, New Zealand.
Nisar, M. & Masood, A. (2018). The Fantasies of Public Management and Creative-Relational Inquiry: A Psychoanalytic Critique. 22nd Annual International Research Society for Public Management Conference, Edinburgh, Scotland.
Nisar, M. (2018). To Report or To Theorize: An Auto-Ethnography of Teaching & Evaluating Auto-Ethnographies.. 17th European Conference on Research Methodology for Business and Management Studies, University of Roma, TRE, Rome, Italy., Rome, Italy.
Masood, A. & Nisar, M. (2018). "Crushed between two stones": Administrative burden of maternity benefits in Pakistan.. 22nd Annual International Research Society for Public Management Conference, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Nisar, M. (2016). Fabricated identities: Legal identity construction of the Khawaja Sira of Pakistan. State, Society and Democracy in the Post Colony, Lahore, Pakistan.
Nisar, M. & Masood, A. (2023). Imagining (Other)wise: A Systematic Literature Review of Postcolonial Scholarship in Public Administration.
Nisar, M. & Masood, A. (2023). Governance by Artifacts: Theory and Evidence on Materiality of Administrative Burdens..
Masood, A. & Nisar, M. (2023). Public Sorrows, Private Politics: Citizen Activism and Administrative Burden.
Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre at LUMS
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