In a move which promises to boost Harvard's international relations offerings, a UCLA political science professor has accepted a tenured faculty position in the government department.

Jeffry Alan Frieden, who will arrive at the University next fall, is an expert in political economy. He has written extensively on the Latin American debt crisis and international monetary relations.

"His work is on some of the most frontier topics in international relations," Gurney Professor of Political Science Robert D. Putnam said yesterday. "He is a very attractive person. He has been sought after by many other major universities."

Harvard has been wooing Frieden, 40, for several years, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Jeremy R. Knowles said in a speech to a gathering of more than 630 alumni Friday night.

The formal offer was made June 22, Frieden said in an interview this weekend. He accepted the position Friday.

Frieden's appointment could not have come at a better time given that former Dillon Professor of International Affairs Joseph S. Nye resigned last month to take a defense job in Washington, Putnam said.

"I don't want this to sound as if it's a fill-in for Joe," Putnam said, "but it will help us hold down the fort until Joe gets back."

Frieden, who was a visiting professor at Harvard in the fall of 1992, has taught a large course on international relations at UCLA, Pharr said.

That would seem to make him a natural for teaching Historical Study A-12, "International Relations in the Modern World," a course which has passed from professor to professor since Nye left. Government Department Chair Susan J. Pharr declined to say whether Frieden would teach the course.

"In as much as it were a straight international relations or foreign policy course, it would be a little way away from what I've been doing over the past few years, but I would certainly be interested," Frieden said of the possibility of teaching a course like A-12.

Frieden's arrival could give a boost to the study of international relations at Harvard.

Although Nye and a few other faculty members proposed a concentration in the subject a few years ago, the suggestion was tabled indefinitely, Putnam said.

"When there was discussion of that by a faculty-wide committee two or three years ago, their main conclusion was that we couldn't even begin to contemplate an international relations major until we got more faculty in that area," Putnam said.

Over the past few years, however, the government department has acquired some "dynamite junior faculty" in the area, according to Putnam.

Pharr said Frieden is known not only for his research but also for his teaching.

"He is an extremely popular undergraduate teacher as well as an outstanding graduate teacher," Pharr said.