Joseph Nye Quotes

American political scientist

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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 and explained the distinction between it and hard 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. Nye was the former Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, where he held the position of University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus. In October 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry appointed Nye to the Foreign Affairs Policy Board. He was a member of the Harvard faculty since 1964. He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and a foreign fellow of The British Academy. He was also a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy.

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Birth Name: Joseph Samuel Nye Jr.

Alternative Names: Joseph Samuel Nye, Jr. • Joseph S. Nye, Jr. • Joseph S. Nye

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Governments now have to share the stage with actors who can use information to enhance their soft power and press governments directly, or indirectly by mobilizing their publics.

Humans sometimes make surprising choices, and human history is full of uncertainties.

The best hope for the future is to ask what is being determined as well as who determines it.

In foreign policy, as in medicine, leaders must “first do no harm.”

Systems can create consequences not intended by any other of their constituent actors.

When words are both descriptive and prescriptive, thyey become political words used in struggles for power.

At some point, consequences matter.

Power conversion is the capacity to convert potential power, as measured by resources, to realized power, as measured by the changed behavior of others.

Attention rather than information becomes the scarce resource, and those who can distinguish valuable information from the background clutter gain power.

Power, like love, is easier to experience than to define or measure.

The territorial state has not always existed in the past, so it need not necessarily exist in the future.

Effective foreign policymaking requires an understanding of not only international and transnational systems, but also the intricacies of domestic politics in multiple countries. It also demands recognition of just how little is known about “building nations,” particularly after revolutions – a process that should be viewed in terms of decades, not years.

Some observers feel it is harder to change public opinion in democracies than it is to change policies in totalitarian countries.

Any sense of global community is weak.

No one can tell the whole story of anything.