Robert Jervis

Focus areas: International relations theory, decision-making, security policy

Robert Jervis is the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University.

Specializing in international politics in general and security policy, decision making, and theories of conflict and cooperation in particular, his Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War was published by Cornell University Press in April 2010. Among his earlier books are American Foreign Policy in a New Era (Routledge, 2005), System Effects: Complexity in Political and Social Life (Princeton, 1997); The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution (Cornell, 1989); Perception and Misperception in International Politics (Princeton, 1976); and The Logic of Images in International Relations (Columbia, 1989). Jervis also is a coeditor of the Security Studies Series published by Cornell University Press. He serves on the board of nine scholarly journals, and has authored over 100 publications.

Dr. Jervis is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has also served as the president of the American Political Science Association. In 1990 he received the Grawemeyer Award for his book The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution.

Dr. Jervis earned his BA from Oberlin College in 1962. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1968. From 1968 to 1974 he was appointed Assistant (1968–1972) and Associate (1972–1974) Professor of Government at Harvard University. From 1974 to 1980 he was Profess or Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Education

• PhD, University of California, Berkeley
• BA, Oberlin College

Affiliations

• American Association for the Advancement of Science
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Honors & Awards

• Inaugural Distinguished Scholar Award, Foreign Policy Section, APSA, 2016
• National Academy of Science award for contributions on behavioral science to preventing nuclear war, 2006
• Lasswell Award for lifetime achievement, International Society of Political Psychology, 2004
• Career Achievement Award, Security Studies Section, International Studies Association, 1996
• Nevitt Sanford Award for Distinguished Professional Contribution to Political Psychology, 1992
• Grawemeyer Award for the book with the Best Ideas for Improving World Order ("The Meaning of the Nuclear Revolution"), 1990
• Honorary degree, Universita Ca’Foscari, Venice
• Honorary degree, Oberlin College

Robert Jervis''s new book, How Statesmen Think, is about the psychology of international politics. (audio)

Robert Jervis explains why the five avenues to power at Foggy Bottom are blocked to the current man in charge.