Joseph Nye

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Joseph Samuel Nye Jr. (January 19, 1937 – May 6, 2025) was an American political scientist. He and Robert Keohane co-founded the international relations theory of neoliberalism, which they developed in their 1977 book Power and Interdependence. Together with Keohane, he developed the concepts of asymmetrical and complex interdependence. They also explored transnational relations and world politics in an edited volume in the 1970s. More recently, he pioneered the theory of soft power. His notion of "smart power" ("the ability to combine hard and soft power into a successful strategy") became popular with the use of this phrase by members of the Clinton Administration and the Obama Administration. These theories from Nye are very commonly seen in courses across the U.S., such as I.B. D.P. Global Politics.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Nye was the Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he later held the position of University Distinguished Service Professor, emeritus.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In October 2014, US Secretary of State John Kerry appointed Nye to the Foreign Affairs Policy Board.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> He was also a member of the Defense Policy Board.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was a Harvard faculty member since 1964. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, a foreign fellow of the British Academy, and a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The 2011 Teaching, Research, and International Policy (TRIP) survey of over 1,700 international relations scholars ranked Nye as the sixth most influential scholar in the field of international relations in the past 20 years.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He was also ranked as one of the most influential figures in American foreign policy. In 2011, Foreign Policy magazine included him on its list of top global thinkers.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In September 2014, Foreign Policy reported that international relations scholars and policymakers ranked Nye as one of the field's most influential scholars.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Early life, family and education

Nye was born in South Orange, New Jersey, the third of four children born to Joseph, a bond trader and equities firm lead; and Else Ashwell Nye.<ref name= globe-obit>Template:Cite news</ref> Joseph Sr. did not graduate high school or college, but Else was a college graduate.<ref name= globe-obit /> Joseph Jr. had two older sisters and a younger sister. For most of his youth, the family resided on a Template:Cvt farm<ref name= globe-obit /> in New Vernon, New Jersey.<ref name= timesUK-obit>Template:Cite news</ref>

He attended Morristown Prep (later the Morristown–Beard School) in Morristown, New Jersey, graduating in 1954. He then attended Princeton University, also in New Jersey, where he was vice president of the Colonial Club, a columnist for The Daily Princetonian, and a member of the American Whig–Cliosophic Society's Debate Panel.<ref name= holt>Template:Cite web</ref> He graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in history in 1958. His senior thesis was Death of a Family Firm: An Entrepreneurial History of the American Preserve Company.<ref>Template:Cite thesis</ref> Nye was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and won the Myron T. Herrick Thesis Prize.Template:Citation needed He was among 32 students selected as a Rhodes Scholar<ref name= holt /> and chose to attend Oxford University's Exeter College, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE).

In 1964, he obtained his PhD in political science from Harvard University, studying under Henry Kissinger and J. K. Galbraith.<ref name= timesUK-obit /> Nye's doctoral dissertation was on regional integration in East Africa.<ref name=":1" />

Career

In 1964, the same year Nye received his doctorate, he joined the Harvard faculty. He was Director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at John F. Kennedy School of Government from 1985 to 1990 and was Associate Dean for International Affairs at Harvard from 1989 to 1992. In 1968, he became the Carnegie Endowment International Peace Scholar and taught at the Geneva Graduate Institute.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Nye also was Director of the Center for International Affairs at Harvard from 1989 to 1993 and Dean of John F. Kennedy School of Government from 1995 to 2004. Nye was a University Distinguished Service Professor, emeritus.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Nye and his colleague Keohane have been characterized as key figures in the development of a discipline of international political economy, largely as a result of their authorship of Power and Interdependence.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite book</ref> Nye's influences include Karl Deutsch and Ernst Hass.<ref name=":12">Template:Cite book</ref>

From 1977 to 1979, Nye was Deputy to the Undersecretary of State for Security Assistance, Science, and Technology<ref name= globe-obit /> and chaired the National Security Council Group on Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons. In recognition of his service, he was awarded the State Department's Distinguished Honor Award in 1979. In 1993 and 1994, he was Chairman of the National Intelligence Council, which coordinates intelligence estimates for the President, and was awarded the Intelligence Community's Distinguished Service Medal. In the Clinton Administration from 1994 to 1995, Nye served as Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and was awarded the Department's Distinguished Service Medal with Oak Leaf Cluster.Template:Citation needed He was responsible for the Nye Initiative<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and co-wrote a series of reports on the Japan-US alliance with his friend Richard Armitage.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1999, during a visit to Singapore, Nye suggested to Lee Kuan Yew that Singapore should set up a version of London's Speaker's Corner at Hyde Park to allow public speaking, which Singapore then created its own Speaker's Corner at Hong Lim Park in 2000.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Nye was considered by many to be the preferred choice for National Security Advisor in the 2004 presidential campaign of John Kerry.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

File:Professor Joseph Nye and Dr Robin Niblett - Chatham House 2013 (cropped).jpg
Nye in 2013

He was the chairman of the North American branch of the Trilateral Commission<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the co-chair of the Aspen Strategy Group. He was also a member of the Atlantic Council's Board of Directors.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Nye also served as a trustee of Radcliffe College and Wells College. He was on the board of directors of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Guiding Coalition of the Project on National Security Reform, the advisory board of Carolina for Kibera, and the Board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Prize by Princeton University and the Charles E. Merriman Prize by the American Political Science Association. In 2005, he was awarded the Honorary Patronage of the University Philosophical Society of Trinity College Dublin and was awarded honorary degrees by ten colleges and universities. In 2010, Nye won the Foreign Policy Distinguished Scholar Award from the International Studies Association. In 2009, he was made a Theodore Roosevelt Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In October 2014, US Secretary of State John Kerry appointed Nye to the Foreign Affairs Policy Board, a group that meets periodically to discuss strategic questions and to provide the Secretary and other senior department officials with independent informed perspectives and ideas.<ref name=":0" /> In November 2014, Nye was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star in recognition of his "contribution to the development of studies on Japan-U.S. security and to the promotion of the mutual understanding between Japan and the United States."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Nye served as a Commissioner for the Global Commission on Internet Governance,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and served on the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace from 2017 until its conclusion in 2019. He served on the global Advisory Council for CFK Africa, a leading NGO working in Kenyan informal settlements.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Nye coined the term soft power in the late 1980s, and it first came into widespread usage following a piece he wrote in Foreign Policy in 1990.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Nye consistently wrote for Project Syndicate since 2002.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Significant views

Nye was a neo-liberal.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite book</ref>

In Nye's view, analysis of collective security systems requires consideration of economic matters.<ref name=":2" /> Matters of collective economic security include common goods, the presence or absence of trade restrictions, and distribution of profits between countries.<ref name=":2" />

Personal life

File:Professor Joseph S Nye, University Distinguished Service Professor, Harvard Kennedy School of Government (18549929998).jpg
Nye in 2015

Nye married Molly (Mary) Harding in 1961.<ref name= timesUK-obit /> They had three sons: John, Benjamin and Daniel.<ref name= fullbio>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name= globe-obit /><ref name= timesUK-obit /> Nye was a member of a Unitarian Universalist Association church.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Molly was a ceramics artist, art gallery leader<ref name= timesUK-obit /> and art consultant.<ref name= fullbio /> She died about five months before her husband.<ref name= globe-obit />

Nye resided in Lexington, Massachusetts,<ref name= globe-obit /> as well as in Europe, East Africa, and Central America, and he traveled to over 90 countries. His hobbies commonly involved the outdoors; he enjoyed camping,<ref name= timesUK-obit /> fly fishing, hiking, gardening (including horticultural activities at his Template:Cvt New Hampshire tree farm). His played squash and was an avid skier.<ref name= fullbio />

Nye's last residence was at Brookhaven,<ref name= globe-obit /> a retirement community in Lexington.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He died at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 6, 2025, at the age of 88.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name= globe-obit />

Bibliography

Books

Selected articles and essays

See also

References

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