The Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University is delighted to announce that the latest recipient of the Edgar S.Furniss Book Award is Tyler Jost, for his book Bureaucracies at War: The Institutional Origins of Miscalculation (Cambridge Studies in International Relations, 2024).
Commemorating the founding director of the Mershon Center, the Furniss Award is conferred annually on a first book that makes an exceptional contribution to the study of national, international, or human security. The current award is for a book published in the calendar year of 2024.
Bureaucracies at War demonstrates that the design of national security institutions shapes the quality of bureaucratic information upon which leaders base their choice for conflict. The committee, representing four disciplines, described the winning entry as "the complete package": strong theoretically and empirically, exceptionally well-written, and drawing on a "stunning array of sources," including interviews, oral histories, archival documents, and printed material for his case studies of miscalculation in China, India, Pakistan, and the US.
They were especially impressed by his consultation of materials from crisis adversaries in order to assess the accuracy of leader beliefs and bureaucratic information.
Jost will visit the Mershon Center for the Furniss Award presentation and lecture on November 6.
Jost is an assistant professor of Political Science at Brown University. His research focuses on national security decision-making, major power politics, and Chinese foreign policy. His research has been published in The China Quarterly, International Organization, International Security, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and International Studies Quarterly. He is currently working on a second book examining major power cooperation in the modern era, focusing on the evolution of US-China relations since 1989.
Jost's latest offering, "After Xi," co-authored with Daniel C. Mattingly, appears in the current issue of Foreign Affairs.