Alexander Cooley is an associate professor of international relations at Barnard College at Columbia University. As an Open Society Fellow, Cooley will research the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and its activities in Central Asia. In particular, he is examining the SCO’s impact on regional integration and whether the SCO is sidelining Western actors by providing an alternative source of legitimacy to member states.

Cooley has written two books, Logics of Hierarchy: The Organization of Empires, States and Military Occupations, on how Soviet administrative legacies shaped the formation of Central Asian states; and Base Politics: Democratic Change and the US Military Abroad, which examines the political impact of U.S. military bases in overseas host countries, including Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

During his fellowship term, he will write scholarly and popular articles and prepare recommendations for policy makers in Washington, D.C. and Brussels, and NGOs working in Central Asia.

New York, NY  |  Jan 2009 - June 2010