John H. Herz

John H. Herz (born Hans Hermann Herz; 23 September 1908 – 26 December 2005) was an American scholar of international relations and law. He coined the concept of the security dilemma. In 1931, Herz chose Hans Kelsen as his doctoral supervisor at the University of Cologne. In 1935, he fled Germany because he was Jewish and emigrated to Switzerland where he received a diploma from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva in 1938. In 1938, he emigrated to the United States. In 1940, he also worked at Trinity College (Connecticut). After World War 2, he worked as a political analyst for the US State Department - he took part in the US delegation to the Nuremberg trials and also helped draw up a plan for democratizing the occupation zone in Germany.

In a 1950 article, Herz coined the concept of the security dilemma. While at Harvard University, Herz wrote Political Realism and Political Idealism, a book which the American Political Science Association awarded the Woodrow Wilson Prize in 1951. He crafts a theory of "Realist Liberalism." According to a 1952 review of the book, Herz's "approach to the problem of politics is... essentially psychological in character. Man, he thinks, is driven in his relations with other men by two contradictory impulses. Through fear of others he is impelled to seek security in a competitive struggle for power; through compassion for his fellow men, he regrets the sufferings thus entailed, and yearns for universal peace."

The following year, he joined City College of New York, where he taught International Relations until his retirement in 1979. Herz was one of a number of Jewish refugees from Germany who found positions in American universities and taught International Relations from a critical, Realist perspective. He wrote books and several influential articles.

He died in Scarsdale, New York on December 26, 2005, at the age of 97.

Personal life Herz married Anne Klein (d. 2003) in 1941. They had a son, Stephen, in 1946.