Alexander A. Cooley is an American political scientist. He is Claire Tow Professor at

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Col ...

. He served as the 15th director of the

Harriman Institute The Harriman Institute, the first academic center in the United States devoted to the interdisciplinary study of Russia and the Soviet Union, was founded at Columbia University in 1946, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, as the Russia ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manha ...

and is currently the Vice Provost for Research, Libraries and Academic Centers at Barnard College.

Biography

Cooley graduated from

Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a private liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States. It was established as ...

and received his Ph.D. from

, studying under Hendrik Spruyt and

Mark von Hagen Mark Louis von Hagen (July 21, 1954 – September 15, 2019) was an American military historian who taught Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian history at Arizona State University. He was formerly at Columbia University. He was commissioned by ''The Ne ...

. He taught at

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consiste ...

before joining the faculty of

in 2001, eventually serving as chair of the college's political science department. In 2015, he was named director of Columbia's Harriman Institute, serving in the position for six years. Cooley has written extensively about the politics of the

Former-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union (FSU), the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad (russian: links=no, ближнее зарубежье, blizhneye zarubezhye), are the 15 sovereign states that we ...

, with an emphasis on

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former ...

and the

Caucasus The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (country), Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range ...

, as well as the liberal international order and democratic backsliding. His analysis of great power politics in

was called by

National Bureau of Asian Research The National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) is an American non-profit, research institution based in Seattle, Washington, with a branch office in Washington, D.C. NBR brings together specialists, policymakers, and business leaders to examine ...

as "possibly the most cogent critique of post–Cold War orthodoxy published to date."

Bibliography

* ''Logics of Hierarchy: The Organization of Empires, States, and Military Occupations,'' Cornell University Press, 2005. * Base Politics: Democratic Change and the U.S. Military Overseas, Cornell University Press, 2008. * ''Contracting States: Sovereign Transfers in International Relations,'' Princeton University Press, 2009. * ''Great Games, Local Rules: The New Great Power Contest in Central Asia,'' Oxford University Press, 2015. * ''Ranking the World: Grading states as a Tool of Global Governance'', Cambridge University Press, 2015 * ''Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia'', Yale University Press, 2017. * ''Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order'', Oxford University Press, 2020. * ''Undermining American Hegemony: Goods Substitution in World Politics,'' Cambridge University Press, 2021.

Personal life

Cooley's father was journalist

John K. Cooley John Kent Cooley (November 25, 1927 – August 6, 2008) was an American journalist and author who specialized in islamist groups and the Middle East. Based in Athens, he worked as a radio and off-air television correspondent for ''ABC News'' and w ...

, who served as an editor of ''

The Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooley, Alexander Living people Swarthmore College alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni American political scientists Johns Hopkins University faculty Barnard College faculty Columbia University faculty Year of birth missing (living people)