Central Asia’s New Consultants: The Changing Transnational Basis of Authoritarian Governance

Alexander Cooley is the Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College. From 2015 to 2021, he served as the 15th Director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for the study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe.

Professor Cooley’s research examines how external actors—including emerging powers, international organizations, multinational companies, NGOs, and Western enablers of grand corruption—have influenced the development, governance and sovereignty of the former Soviet states, with a focus on Central Asia and the Caucasus. Cooley is the author and/or editor of eight academic books including, Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia (Yale University Press, 2017), co-authored with John Heathershaw, and more recently, Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020), co-authored with Daniel Nexon.