“Perceptions of the world and of other actors diverge from reality in patterns that we can detect and for reasons that we can understand,” explains Robert Jervis.

Dr. Jervis is the Adlai E. Stevenson Professor and Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). A leading international relations scholar, he has authored over 100 publications.

His research seeks to explain international politics in general and security policy, decision making, and theories of conflict and cooperation in particular. He works to draw connections among different sources and understand the connections between theory and policy.

“You build up a store of information which allows you to piece the information together. Part of what you do is compare what you learn with what you're getting from other sources,” he says.

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). His Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War was published by Cornell University Press in April 2010. Professor Jervis also is a coeditor of the Security Studies Series published by Cornell University Press. He serves on the board of nine scholarly journals.

Professor Jervis received the 1990 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and past president of the American Political Science Association.