Robert Owen Keohane (born October 3, 1941) is an American
academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...
working within the fields of
international relations
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...
and
international political economy. Following the publication of his influential book ''
After Hegemony
''After Hegemony'' (full title: ''After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy'') is a book by Robert Keohane first published in 1984. It is a leading text in the liberal institutionalist international relations scholar ...
'' (1984), he has become widely associated with the theory of
neoliberal institutionalism in international relations, as well as transnational relations and
world politics The terms "world politics" or "global politics" may refer to:
*Geopolitics, the study of the effects of geography on politics and International Relations (IR)
* Global politics, a discipline of political science which focuses on political globalizat ...
in
international relations
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...
in the 1970s.
He is Professor Emeritus of
International Affairs
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...
at the
Princeton School of Public and International Affairs
The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (formerly the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs) is a professional public policy school at Princeton University. The school provides an array of comprehensive course ...
, and has also taught at
Swarthmore College,
Duke University,
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
and
Stanford University. A 2011 survey of International Relations scholars placed Keohane second in terms of influence and quality of scholarship in the last twenty years. According to the
Open Syllabus Project, Keohane is the most frequently cited author on college syllabi for political science courses.
Early life
Keohane was born at the
University of Chicago Hospitals
The University of Chicago Medical Center (UChicago Medicine) is a nationally ranked academic medical center located in Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago. It is the flagship campus for The University of Chicago Medicine system and was establi ...
. His education through the fifth grade was at the
University of Chicago Laboratory Schools
The University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (also known as Lab or Lab Schools and abbreviated as UCLS though the high school is nicknamed U-High) is a private, co-educational day Pre-K and K-12 school in Chicago, Illinois. It is affiliated with ...
. When he was 10, the family moved to
Mount Carroll, Illinois, where he attended public school and his parents taught at
Shimer College
Shimer Great Books School (pronounced ) is a Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, with a history of being ...
. After the 10th grade, Keohane enrolled at Shimer through the school's early entrance program, which since 1950 has allowed selected high school students to enter college before completing high school.
When later asked to compare his undergraduate education as an early entrant at Shimer with his graduate work at Harvard, Keohane remarked "it is not clear to me that I have ever been with a brighter set of people than those early entrants."
Keohane currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Shimer College.
He earned a BA, with honors, from
Shimer College
Shimer Great Books School (pronounced ) is a Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of Chicago, with a history of being ...
in 1961.
He obtained his PhD from
Harvard in 1966, one year after he joined the faculty of
Swarthmore College.
He was the student of Harvard University Professor
Stanley Hoffmann
Stanley Hoffmann (27 November 1928 – 13 September 2015) was a French political scientist and the Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Professor at Harvard University, specializing in French politics and society, European politics, U.S ...
. He described
Judith Shklar
Judith Nisse Shklar (September 24, 1928 – September 17, 1992) was a philosopher and political theorist who studied the history of political thought, notably that of the Enlightenment period. She was appointed the John Cowles Professor of Governm ...
as his strongest intellectual mentor during his graduate studies.
He has also described Kenneth Waltz and Karl Polanyi as influences.
Career
Keohane has taught at
Swarthmore,
Stanford,
Brandeis,
Harvard, and
Duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are rank ...
. At Harvard he was Stanfield Professor of International Peace, and at Duke he was the
James B. Duke Professor of Political Science.
He is the author of many works, including
''After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy'' (Princeton University Press, 1984), for which he was awarded the second annual
University of Louisville
The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one o ...
Grawemeyer Award
The Grawemeyer Awards () are five awards given annually by the University of Louisville. The prizes are presented to individuals in the fields of education, ideas improving world order, music composition, religion, and psychology. The religion awa ...
in 1989 for "Ideas Improving World Order".
Keohane describes the process of forming the theoretical insights of ''After Hegemony'' as follows during the late 1970s,
Keohane has been characterized as a key figure in the development of a discipline of
International Political Economy in the United States.
Along with Joseph Nye, Keohane coined the concept of
complex interdependence
Complex interdependence in international relations and international political economy is a concept put forth by Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye in the 1970s to describe the emerging nature of the global political economy. The concept entails that ...
to capture the ways in which power had been fragmented and diffused in economic affairs.
Robert Keohane coined the term
Hegemonic stability theory
Hegemonic stability theory (HST) is a theory of international relations, rooted in research from the fields of political science, economics, and history. HST indicates that the international system is more likely to remain stable when a single sta ...
in a 1980 article for the notion that the international system is more likely to remain stable when a single
nation-state is the dominant world power, or
hegemon
Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over other city-states. ...
.
Keohane's 1984 book ''
After Hegemony
''After Hegemony'' (full title: ''After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy'') is a book by Robert Keohane first published in 1984. It is a leading text in the liberal institutionalist international relations scholar ...
'' used insights from the
new institutional economics
New Institutional Economics (NIE) is an economic perspective that attempts to extend economics by focusing on the institutions (that is to say the social and legal norms and rules) that underlie economic activity and with analysis beyond earlier ...
to argue that the international system could remain stable in the absence of a hegemon, thus rebutting hegemonic stability theory.
Keohane showed that international cooperation could be sustained through repeated interactions, transparency, and monitoring.
Keohane played an important role in steering the focus of the journal ''
International Organization
An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states a ...
'' from scholarship focused on international organizations to a general IR journal; it is now the leading journal in the field of IR.
He joined the journal in 1968.
Between 1974 and 1980, he was editor of the journal.
He has been president of the
International Studies Association
The International Studies Association (ISA) is a US-based professional association for scholars and practitioners in the field of international studies. Founded in 1959, ISA has been headquartered at the University of Connecticut in Storrs sin ...
, 1988–1989, and of the
American Political Science Association, 1999–2000.
Keohane is a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
, the
American Academy of Political and Social Science and has held a
Guggenheim Fellowship and fellowships at the
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences
The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) is an interdisciplinary research lab at Stanford University that offers a residential postdoctoral fellowship program for scientists and scholars studying "the five core social and ...
and the
National Humanities Center The National Humanities Center (NHC) is an independent institute for advanced study in the humanities. The NHC operates as a privately incorporated nonprofit and is not part of any university or federal agency. The center was planned under the auspi ...
. He was awarded the
Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science
), location=Uppsala, Sweden, date=
The Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science ( sv, Skytteanska priset) was established in 1995 by the Johan Skytte Foundation at Uppsala University. The foundation itself goes back to the donation in 1622 from J ...
in 2005, and elected to the
National Academy of Sciences that same year. In 2007, he was elected to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
. He was listed as the most influential scholar of international relations in a 2005 ''
Foreign Policy'' poll.
Political scientists he has taught include
Lisa Martin,
Andrew Moravcsik
Andrew Maitland Moravcsik (born 1957) is professor of politics and international affairs, director of the Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, and founding director of both the European Union Program and the International Relations Facu ...
,
Layna Mosley
Layna Mosley is an American political scientist. She is a professor of political science in the Department of Politics at Princeton University and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. She studies international relations, part ...
,
Beth Simmons, Ronald Mitchell, and
Helen V. Milner. Other students include
Fareed Zakaria.
In 2012, Keohane received the
Harvard Centennial Medal.
In fall 2013 he is the Allianz Distinguished Visitor at the
American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...
.
In 2014, he was awarded the James Madison Award of the American Political Science Association.
He was awarded the 2016
Balzan Prize for International Relations: History and Theory.
Personal life
While he was an assistant professor at Swarthmore College, he was an activist against the Vietnam War, and also campaigned for 1968 presidential candidate
Eugene McCarthy. Keohane is married to
Nannerl O. Keohane, former president of
Duke University and
Wellesley College and herself a noted political scientist.
[Sharon Walsh and Jeffrey Brainard, 'Duke's Ex-President and Her Husband Head to Princeton; Penn's Medical School Denies Tenure to 2 Bioethicists', in '']The Chronicle of Higher Education
''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is a newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals (staff members and administrators). A subscription is required to re ...
'', October 29, 200
/ref> They have four grown children: Sarah, Stephan, Jonathan, and Nat Keohane, Nathaniel.
Books
* ''Transnational Relations and World Politics'', co-authored with Joseph S. Nye, Jr. (Harvard University Press
Harvard University Press (HUP) is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. After the retir ...
, 1972)
* '' After Hegemony: Cooperation and Discord in the World Political Economy'' (Princeton University Press, 1984)
* ''Neorealism and Its Critics'' (Columbia University Press, 1986)
* ''International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory'' (Westview, 1989)
* ''Power and Interdependence: World Politics in Transition'' (Little, Brown, 1977); with Nye
* '' Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research'' (Princeton, 1994); with Gary King and Sidney Verba
Sidney Verba (May 26, 1932 – March 4, 2019) was an American political scientist, librarian and library administrator. His academic interests were mainly American and comparative politics. He was the Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor at ...
* '' Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World'' (Routledge
Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law ...
, New York, 2002)
* ''Humanitarian Intervention: Ethical, Legal, and Political Dilemmas'' (Cambridge University Press, 2003); with J. L. Holzgrefe
* ''The Regime Complex for Climate Change'' with David G. Victor (2010)
References
External links
Robert Keohane's Faculty Profile at Princeton
Robert O. Keohane as the Allianz Distinguished Visitor
at the American Academy in Berlin
The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keohane, Robert
1941 births
Living people
American political scientists
American male writers
Brandeis University faculty
Duke University faculty
Harvard University alumni
Harvard University faculty
International relations scholars
People from Mount Carroll, Illinois
Political liberals (international relations)
Princeton University faculty
Shimer College alumni
Stanford University Department of Political Science faculty
Swarthmore College faculty
University of Chicago Laboratory Schools alumni
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
Corresponding Fellows of the British Academy