Joseph Nye

Joe Nye is University Distinguished Service Professor and former dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. He received his bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1958. He did postgraduate work at Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship and earned a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard. He joined the Harvard Faculty in 1964, and taught one of the largest core curriculum courses in the college. In 2009, a poll of international relations scholars listed him as one of the most influential in the past twenty years and the most influential on American foreign policy. He also served as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on Internet Governance.

He has also worked in three government agencies. From 1977 to 1979, Nye served as Deputy to the Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology and chaired the National Security Council Group on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In recognition of his service, he received the highest Department of State commendation, the Distinguished Honor Award. In 1993 and 1994, he was chair of the National Intelligence Council, which coordinates intelligence estimates for the President. He was awarded the Intelligence Community’s Distinguished Service Medal. In 1994 and 1995, he served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, where he also won the Distinguished Service Medal with an Oak Leaf Cluster.

Nye is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the Academy of Diplomacy, and of the British Academy. He serves on several non-profit boards: as co-chair (with Brent Scowcroft) of the Aspen Strategy Group, chair of the North American Group of the Trilateral Commission, a director of the Council on Foreign Relations, Chair of the Pacific Forum, and a trustee of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is also on advisory boards for TOTAL, Mitsubishi, and the Defense Department. He has served as a director of the Institute for East-West Security Studies, a director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a member of the advisory committee of the Institute of International Economics, and the American representative on the United Nations Advisory Committee on Disarmament Affairs. He has been a trustee of Wells College and of Radcliffe College. He is the recipient of the Woodrow Wilson Award from Princeton University, the Charles Merriam Award from the American Political Science Association, and the Palmes Academiques from the French government. In 2008, a poll of 2700 international relations scholars listed him as the most influential scholar on American foreign policy, and a 2011 poll rated him the fourth most influential scholar in international relations over the past 20 years.

He is the author of thirteen books and more than a hundred and fifty articles in professional and policy journals. His most recent publications are The Powers to Lead (2008), Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics (2004), an anthology, Power in the Global Information Age (2004), a textbook Understanding International Conflict, The Power Game: A Washington Novel (2004), The Future of Power (2011) which The Economist called “rigorous and convincing,” Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era (2013), and his latest book, Is the American Century Over? (2015)

In addition, he has published policy articles in various newspapers and magazines, and his internationally syndicated column appears in papers in more than 70 countries. In addition to teaching at Harvard, Mr. Nye also has taught for brief periods in Geneva, Ottawa, and Oxford where he is a Visiting Professor and an honorary fellow. He has lived and done research in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Central America, Britain, France, Canada, and traveled to more than 100 countries.