Andrew Sharp has taught mainly at the universities of Canterbury and Auckland. He is a Professor of Political Studies at the University of Auckland, where he was Head of Department 1984–1986 and 1994–1999, and is a member of the University Council, representing the Professors on Senate. He has been a member of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council (and Chairman of the Northern Regional Council), and a member of films censorship appeals bodies.

Andrew Sharp teaches in the areas of the history of political thinking and in political philosophy, and has written mainly in the history of English political ideas in the seventeenth century, on New Zealand politics with special reference to Maori–Pakeha politics and political thinking, and on the political philosophy of individualism and groups.

Of New Zealand and Irish nationalities, he was born in 1940, and educated in Christchurch New Zealand (BA, 1962; MA with first class honours in history, 1963) and Cambridge, UK, (PhD in history 1971). From 1964–1968 he was a commonwealth scholar at Trinity College Cambridge. In 1987 he was a Fulbright Fellow in Politics at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and a Visiting Fellow at the Folger Library, Washington DC. In 1994 he was Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University, Canberra. He is on the editorial boards of Political Science (New Zealand) and Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy (UK).

From 1999–2001 he held a Marsden Grant from the Royal Society of New Zealand for the study of the philosophy of representation as illustrated by cases in Maori politics.