Dennis L. Thompson (born 1935) has been a political science professor at Brigham Young University since 1977.

Dennis L. Thomson was raised in Weston, Idaho. His parents moved to Arizona while he served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so when he returned he took over the family farm. It was during this period that he met his wife Karen. He graduated from the University of Idaho in political science, received a master's degree from Arizona State University and his doctorate in political science from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Along the way he served as a staff assistant to the governor of Arizona and as an Army Intelligence officer in New York. He entered the Foreign Service of the Department of State and served in Washington D.C., Paris, and London. He served as a member of several United States delegations negotiating treaties on Antarctica, Pan American railroads and north Pacific fisheries. He also served as deputy international secretary of the multilateral working group of NATO ambassadors.

He taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the University of Arizona, the University of Utah, and the State University of New York at Binghamton prior to coming to Brigham Young University in 1977. He has been a visiting professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and in the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Strasbourg in France. He has also been a Fulbright Scholar and visiting professor at Trinity College in Connecticut. He has served as a consultant to the Arizona and Idaho state legislatures, several Federal government agencies, and county governments in Louisiana, Idaho, Arizona, and New York. He was an advisor to the Constitutional Convention of the Republic of Namibia and has lectured at numerous African universities. He is the author, co-author, or editor of a dozen books, and numerous articles. He has served Brigham Young University as a department chair, associate dean, associate academic vice president, and associate director of the Jerusalem Center.

He and his wife, Karen, have seven children.