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 policy implementation, public administration, health policy, gender identity, and governance and has been published in top-ranked journals of the world including Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, Gender & Society, Higher Education, Public Administration & Development, International Review of Administrative Sciences, and Administration & Society. His forthcoming book Governing Thirdness: State, Society and Inclusion of non-binary identities is being published by Cambridge University Press. 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 doctoral dissertation was awarded the Best Dissertation Award by the Public and Non-Profit Division of the Academy of Management. 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.
He is currently working on issues related to developing citizen friendly public policies, mental health in organizations, and institutional logics of governance in Pakistan. He has also recently finished writing an adventure Urdu Novel for middle schoolers.
In his spare time, he likes to spend time with family, travel, read and play chess.
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.
Bashir, M. & Nisar, M. (2019). Designed to Fail: Political Expediency and Implementation of Right to Information Laws. Public Administration Quarterly.
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). (Un) Becoming a Man: Legal Consciousness of the Third Gender Category in Pakistan. Gender and Society, 32 (1), 59-81.
Nisar, M. (2018). Phenomenology of the stop: street-level bureaucracy and everyday citizenship of marginalized groups. International Review of Administrative Sciences.
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. (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.
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. (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. & Masood, A. (2018). Solving A Sticky Problem: Provision Of Doctors In Underdeveloped Areas Of Punjab, Published. Case Research Unit, LUMS, LUMS No. 16-313-2018-2, Case Research Unit, LUMS.
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. (2018). 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. (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. (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.
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.
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.
Ayesha, M. & Nisar, M. (2019). Policy Interventions for Equitable Distribution of Physician Workforce: A Social Ecological Framework.
Nisar, M. & Masood, A. (2019). From Street-level to Cyborg Bureaucrats: Theory and Evidence on Sociomateriality in Public Administrationurnal.
Nisar, M. (2018). Street-Level Bureaucracy as Cloaca Maxima: Classification and Management of Social Waste.
Bashir, M. & Nisar, M. (2018). Designed to fail: Political expediency and implementation of right to information laws.
Maroulis, S., Diermeier, D. & Nisar, M. (2018). Harnessing the diversity of networked groups: Evidence from a laboratory experiment..
Masood, A. & Nisar, M. (2018). It is like being crushed between two stones: Competing Institutional Logics in the Implementation of maternity Leave Policies in Pakistan.
