Professor of Public Affairs
Office: 212 Observatory Hill Office Building
Phone: 608-263-6633
Fax: 608-265-3233
E-mail:
Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs
University of Wisconsin - Madison
1225 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706-1211
Donald Moynihan is Professor of Public Affairs and served as the Associate Director of the La Follette School from 2009-2012. His research examines the application of organization theory to public management issues such as performance, budgeting, homeland security, election administration, and employee behavior. In particular, he studies the selection and implementation of public management reforms.

His 2008 book, The Dynamics of Performance Management: Constructing Information and Reform, is available from Georgetown University Press and Amazon.com. The Academy of Management's Public and Nonprofit Division named it the best book for 2009. In 2012, the American Political Science Association honored the book with the Herbert Simon award for scholarship that has had a significant influence in public administration scholarship in the last three to five years. Read reviews here.
Journal articles Moynihan has authored have won awards from the Public and Nonprofit Division of the Academy of Management (2002), the American Review of Public Administration (2003), and Public Administration Review (2007). On three occasions Moynihan has won the American Society for Public Administration Wholey Award for outstanding scholarship on performance in public and nonprofit organizations (2009, 2011, and 2013). He won the 2011 National Academy of Public Administration/Wilder School award for scholarship in social equity. The University of Wisconsin–Madison gave him a Romnes Faculty Fellowship in 2009. Moynihan received the 2012 Distinguished Research Award from ASPA and the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration.
Moynihan is the co-editor of Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory and the co-editor of Public Administration Review for the Theory to Practice section. He serves on the editorial board of Public Management Review, American Review of Public Administration, State and Local Government Review, and Public Performance & Management Review. He is a member of the APPAM Policy Council and a former member of the Board of Directors for the Public Management Research Association, and the Executive Council for the Academy of Management Public and Nonprofit Division, and the Executive Council, Public Administration Section of American Political Science Association. In 2011 he was elected to the National Academy of Public Administration.
A native of Ireland, Moynihan completed his Bachelor's of Arts in public administration at the University of Limerick, and his master's and Ph.D. in public administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.