Challenging The Rise and Fall of Paul Kennedy

Professor of Government Joseph S. Nye has just completed one project--and is the initial stages of another--that may broaden his appeal beyond the academic community.

Nye, an expert on foreign policy and "nuclear ethics," is currently working on a novel. It seems that the scholar found the rules of academic writing a bit confining.

"There are things I want to express about ethics and power and how they play out in personal relationships which are hard to do in analytical writing," he says.

While Nye says he has only succeeded in putting together one "very bad" chapter of his fiction work, critical acclaim is already pouring in for the professor's most recent scholarly work, called Bound to Lead.

Political scientists say that the book may catapult Nye into a high-profile debate with Yale University's Paul Kennedy.

Nye argues that the United States is not in decline, as Kennedy claimed in his 1987 best-seller The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, but is merely being judged by an unrealistic and outdated standard.

When Nye compares today's U.S. to that of the 1970s--rather than the 1940s--he concludes that the country has remained, and can continue to remain, the world's most powerful nation.

Nye further argues that the hegemonic model of power, which holds that one nation must logically replace another as dominant, is obsolete.

Instead, Nye says that the U.S. must learn to cope with an increasingly interdependent world economy and political order.

While Nye says he respects Kennedy's scholarship, he says he finds his theory of American decline "intellectually non-coherent."

"That frame of thinking, with our mind in the past, would actually be disasterous," Nye says.

Although Nye's analysis has been praised by many scholars, few say they agree completely with his conclusions.

Yale historian Gaddis Smith, who will review Nye's book for Foreign Affairs, says the book is well thought out, but may be overly-optimistic.

"He's very upbeat," Smith says in an interview, "more upbeat on the American educational system than I am. I'd very much like to believe that he is right, but I'm not entirely persuaded."

"I think the greatest strength of Professor Nye's book lies in his discussion of 'soft power,'" Smith says. "But the statistical game as to whether the U.S. is in decline in my opinion becomes a game that circles in on itself and becomes rather inconclusive."

Bound to Lead is written in a style which will appeal both to scholars and to the general public, colleagues say.

"It's authored in such a way that it can be read by many people," says Stanley Hoffmann, Dillon professor of the civilization of France, who adds that, if pressed, he might lean towards Kennedy in the scholarly debate.

"It has the great advantage of not being written in indigestible jargon of international relations," Hoffmann says. "But it's not for people who pick up Ludlum at the airport, either," referring to the author of best-selling intrigue novels.

And Smith says that Bound to Lead's readibility, combined with its popular and controversial topic, is bound to garner more publicity for Nye and further enrich his academic reputation. "My hunch is that the book is going to get even more acclaim," Smith says.