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

About Joseph Nye

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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