Discover the Best Books Written by Graham Allison

Graham Tillett Allison Jr. (born March 23, 1940) is an American political scientist and the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is renowned for his contribution in the late 1960s and early 1970s to the bureaucratic analysis of decision-making, especially during times of crisis. His book Remaking Foreign Policy: The Organizational Connection, co-written with Peter Szanton, was published in 1976 and had some influence on the foreign policy of the administration of President Jimmy Carter, who took office in early 1977. 

Since the 1970s, Allison has also been a leading analyst of U.S. national security and defense policy, with a special interest in nuclear weapons and terrorism. Allison is from Charlotte, North Carolina, and graduated from Myers Park High School in 1958. He attended Davidson College for two years, then graduated from Harvard University in 1962 with a B.A. degree. Allison then completed B.A. and M.A. degrees studying philosophy, politics, and economics at Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar in 1964. 

She returned to Harvard to earn a Ph.D. degree in political science in 1968, where Henry Kissinger was one of his professors. In 1979 Allison received an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Uppsala University, Sweden. Allison has spent his entire academic career at Harvard as an assistant professor (1968), associate professor (1970), then full professor (1972) in the department of government. 

He was dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government from 1977 to 1989, while the School increased in size by 400% and its endowment increased by 700%. He was director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs from 1995 until 2017, when former Secretary of Defense Ash Carter succeeded him. Allison remains Douglas Dillon's Professor of Government.

Allison has also been a fellow of the Center for Advanced Studies (1973–74); consultant for the RAND Corporation; member of the Council on Foreign Relations; member of the visiting committee on foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution (1972–77); and a member of the Trilateral Commission (1974–84 and 2018). He was among those mentioned to succeed David Rockefeller as President of the Council on Foreign Relations. 

In 2009 he was awarded the NAS Award for Behavior Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War from the National Academy of Sciences. Allison has also been a member of the Board of Trustees for the lobbying group USACC (United States-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce). Allison is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration.