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Updated May 7, 2025, at 5:24 p.m.
Former Harvard Kennedy School dean and prominent international relations scholar Joseph S. Nye Sr. died at 88 on Tuesday.
HKS Dean Jeremy M. Weinstein announced Nye’s death in an email to faculty, staff, and students Wednesday afternoon.
Nye, who served as assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs under President Bill Clinton, was one of the most influential thinkers in contemporary international relations theory.
Nye was best known for developing the theory of neoliberalism alongside Princeton professor Robert Keohane. He also coined the term “soft power” in the 1980s to describe a country’s non-military sway on the world stage.
“It is impossible to capture Joe’s intellectual contributions in a paragraph or a page,” Weinstein wrote in his email to HKS affiliates. “In a century of unprecedented change in global politics, he was among the foremost thinkers to shape our understanding of contemporary international relations.”
In a post on X mourning Nye’s death, former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers praised Nye as a “profound scholar” and “dedicated public official.”
“The modern university has far too few like him,” Summers wrote. “I will so miss learning from him but his writing and his example will influence me and many others for a long time to come.”
Nye first joined the Harvard faculty in 1964 after receiving his Ph.D. in Government. He alternated between Cambridge, other universities, and the White House for much of his career, serving in various national security positions in both the Carter and Clinton administrations.
In a statement accompanying the announcement, Graham T. Allison ’62 — a preeminent scholar of national security who led the Kennedy School into its modern era during his deanship in the 1970s and 1980s — wrote that Nye was most proud of his diplomatic efforts to avert nuclear war. Allison also described fondly his personal relationship with Nye.
“He was not just a friend, but a functional brother, whom I loved,” Allison wrote.
HKS professor of the practice Nicholas Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to China, applauded Nye’s commitment to public service in the announcement of his death, describing Nye as a “founding father of the Kennedy School” and an “admired senior government official.”
“Literally hundreds of us count Joe as our indispensable mentor,” Burns said. “He was simply a giant at the Kennedy School and in our lives.”
Nye served as HKS dean from 1995 to 2004, overseeing a period of growth during which the school increased its faculty by more than 40 percent and added five research centers.
Former HKS dean David T. Ellwood ’75 wrote in the announcement that Nye was “an exceptional leader” and cited Nye’s efforts to diversify the school and its scholarship.
“He broadened and deepened our engagement with international students and government, championed women’s leadership, and worked tirelessly to build excellence in government,” Ellwood said.
Nye remained an active commentator on world affairs until shortly before his death.
In an early March interview with The Crimson, he described President Donald Trump’s attempt to humiliate Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office as a strategic move for Trump — and a victory for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I think Putin has played Trump brilliantly,” Nye said. “I mean, he’s taken a narcissist and played him like a fiddle.”
Nye was a frequent critic of Trump, who he viewed as a reckless opponent of the institutions that strengthened America’s global standing. He was an ardent defender of Harvard and other universities against what he viewed as external pressure campaigns — both from donors and from the government.
Nye said in a March interview that he expected the Trump administration would eventually face “backlash” for its attacks on higher education and public service.
“I think in that sense, it’s like a pendulum,” Nye said at the time. “The pendulum has swung pretty far in one direction. I suspect it will probably swing back, though, maybe not, to where it started.
“So I think the mission remains important and will be supported,” he added.
—Staff writer Elise A. Spenner can be reached at elise.spenner@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X at @EliseSpenner.
