[Editor:] Back in 2019 I posted a piece that noted that Foucault ranked number 1 on the H-Index with the caveat that there was a separate ranking for the high energy physicists with hyper-authored papers. I thought I might revisit this and see what the current ranking news on this was.
All the usual warnings about the validity of H-index scores apply here of course. Gaming of this system has increased considerably since the advent of readily available Large Language Models such as Chat GPT and the Retraction Watch blog is instructive in terms of inflationary practices around publication and citation.
This 2020 report notes: “At the very top of the list is philosopher Michel Foucault, who has an h-index of 296 and was cited 1,026,230 times.”
This 2024 book review of Chomsky’s work further adds: “Not many academics do better than Chomsky citation-wise. But there are a few… Philosopher and historian Michel Foucault (1,361,000 = 2.72 Chomskys)”.
Foucault’s current h-index indicates the pinnacle of his H-index citation fame was in fact in 2019 when I posted the original report of his ranking and has been declining since.
There are a number of complex reasons for this, which would certainly bear more detailed analysis. One reason is the acceptance and normalisation of some of Foucault’s ideas and concepts dispensing with the need for the obligatory citation. Examples include “biopolitics”, “genealogy” understood as historical method, and particular uses of the notion of “discourse”. The increasing power and uptake of right wing ideologies is of course another factor. But one might also mention the general passing of time and other shifts in the social, political and cultural landscape. As someone who started studying Foucault’s work while he was still alive, watching him gradually become a historical figure has been an interesting trajectory.
Foucault News 