In an interview with the Future Tense podcast, Tyler Jost discusses China's shift away from aggressive "Wolf Warrior" diplomacy and explores how institutional amnesia may explain global unpreparedness for natural disasters.
Read Article
Tyler Jost
Assistant Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs
Areas of Expertise
Bureaucracy, US Foreign Policy
Areas of Interest
Chinese politics; international security; bureaucracy; foreign policy decision-making
Biography
Tyler Jost is an assistant professor of political science at Brown University. His research focuses on national security decision-making, bureaucratic politics, and Chinese foreign policy. His research has been published in International Organization, International Security, Journal of Conflict Resolution and International Studies Quarterly.
Jost’s first book, "Bureaucracies at War" (Cambridge University Press, 2024), examines how different types of bureaucratic institutions across the world lead to better and worse foreign policy decisions. He is currently working on a second book examining the role of peripheral states in cooperation between the United States and China.
Jost completed his Ph.D. in the Department of Government at Harvard University and held postdoctoral fellowships at the Belfer Center International Security Program at the Kennedy School of Government, as well as in the China and the World Program at Columbia University. From 2023 to 2024, he was the David and Cindy Edelson Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy and International Security at Dartmouth College.
Research
Tyler Jost’s research explores the institutions responsible for national security decision-making. His book project offers a theory of the origins and consequences of national security institutions, coupling an original cross-national time series dataset with new archival and interview data from China, Taiwan, India and Pakistan. Other research projects employ qualitative, statistical and experimental methods to address theoretical puzzles regarding the politics of elite advisers, bureaucracy, and international security.
Teaching
Diplomacy, Crisis, and War in the Modern Era
Chinese Foreign Policy
US-China Relations
National Security Decision-Making
Authoritarian Politics
Recent News
News from Watson
Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation
Tyler Jost's new book, "Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation," examines how national security institutions influence leaders' conflict decisions and why some provide better counsel than others.
Read Article
News from Watson
Watson scholars participate in APSA Annual Meeting and Exhibition
Several Watson scholars recently participated in the annual conference of the American Political Science Association (APSA).
Read Article
Tyler Jost comments for Nikkei Asia, "My reading is that China has pulled back on that tactless, less diplomatic way of delivering messages, though that doesn't necessarily mean that China is going to be less confrontational or less assertive -- more that they will pick and choose how they deliver messages."
Read Article
Foreign Affairs
Have China’s Wolf Warriors Gone Extinct? (written by Tyler Jost)
Tyler Jost wrote an opinion column for Foreign Affairs about Chinese diplomacy.
Read Article
This year, five Watson research proposals were awarded a total of $100,000 in Birkelund Funds. The funds support faculty research, especially in the early stages, and encourage student engagement in research.
Read Article