Faculty Profile

Dr. Muhammad Azfar Nisar

Associate Professor

Suleman Dawood School of Business

Muhammad Azfar Nisar is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy & Administration at the Suleman Dawood School of Business where he is also the Director of Center for Governance and Public Management. 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.

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 research is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies including ethnographic fieldwork and social network analysis.

Dr. Nisar has provided policy advice to multiple local and international organizations and is currently working on developing a book on public policy analysis in Pakistan. His current research interests include citizen activism, accountability in the non-profit sector and evidence based health policy formulation.

      • Nisar, M. & Masood, A. (In Press 2024). Governance by Artifacts: Theory and Evidence on Materiality of Administrative Burdens. Public Administration Review.

      • Nisar, M. (2022). Repairing the State: Policy Repair in the Frontline Bureaucracy. Public Administration Review.

      • Nisar, M. (2022). Imagining an Otherwise Global Public Administration: Conceptual Reflections. Administration and Society.

      • Nisar, M. (2022). Decolonization and Public Administration: Frustrated Ramblings of a Spoilsport.. Administrative Theory and Praxis.

      • Nisar, M. (2022). Are all Burdens Bad? Disentangling Illegitimate Administrative Burdens through Public Value Accounting. Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration.

      • 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. (2020). Expectation versus reality: Political expediency and implementation of right to information laws. Public Administration Quarterly.

      • 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.

      • Masood, A. & Nisar, M. (2020). Crushed between Two Stones: Competing Institutional Logics in the Implementation of Maternity Leave Policies in Pakistan. Gender, Work & Organization.

      • 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. & 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.

      • 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.

      • 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.

      • 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). 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. (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. (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. (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.

      • 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.