Joseph Samuel Nye Jr. is an American political scientist and former Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He currently holds the position of University Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University where he has been a member of the faculty since 1964. He is also the co-founder, along with Robert Keohane, of the international relations theory neoliberalism, developed in their 1977 book Power and Interdependence. Together with Keohane, he developed the concepts of asymmetrical and complex interdependence. They also explored transnational relations and world politics in an edited volume in the 1970s. More recently, he pioneered the theory of soft power. His notion of "smart power" became popular with the use of this phrase by members of the Clinton Administration, and more recently the Obama Administration. Nye also serves as a Guiding Coalition member for the Project on National Security Reform.

The 2011 TRIP survey of over 1700 international relations scholars ranks Joseph Nye as the sixth most influential scholar in the field of international relations in the past twenty years.

In 2011, he was named by Foreign Policy magazine to its list of top global thinkers.