Stephen David Krasner (born February 15, 1942) is an American political scientist and former diplomat.

[6] He received his BA from the Department of History at Cornell University in 1963, where he was a member of the Quill and Dagger society.

At Stanford University, Krasner has been an advisor to Daniel Drezner[8] and Krasner was a key figure in establishing regime theory as a prominent topic of study in IR, in part through the 1983 edited collection International Regimes.

Krasner is credited with incorporating the idea of punctuated equilibrium into the social sciences and contributing to critical juncture theory.

Krasner was named Director of Policy Planning in the State Department by his former Stanford University colleague Condoleezza Rice.