This session of the 2023 Athens Security Forum features a conversation between Alexander Cooley and Alexander Stubb, Former Prime Minister of Finland. They discuss the importance of the Ukraine War to the Global South, Finland in NATO, and related current events.

Moderated by: Alexander A. Cooley, Director, Harriman Institute; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College

Co-sponsored by: IDIS (Institute of International Relations) and Columbia University's Harriman Institute.

This World Leaders Forum program features an address by Klaus Werner Iohannis, President of Romania, followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

Moderated by: Alexander A. Cooley, Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College; 15th Director of Columbia University's Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe (2015-2021).

Co-sponsored by: Columbia University's Harriman Institute and the Center on Global Economic Governance.

This World Leaders Forum program features an address by Dimitar Kovachevski, Prime Minister of the Republic of North Macedonia, followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

Moderated by: Alexander A. Cooley, Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College; 15th Director of Columbia University's Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe (2015-2021).

Co-sponsored by: Columbia University's Harriman Institute and the Center on Global Economic Governance.

This World Leaders Forum program features an address by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of Belarusian democratic forces, followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

Moderated by: Alexander A. Cooley, Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College; 15th Director of Columbia University's Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe (2015-2021).

Co-sponsored by: Columbia University's Harriman Institute and the Center on Global Economic Governance.

Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine has been condemned by the West and met with a strong collective response. The European Union and the United States have imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia, individual NATO countries have supplied Ukraine with weapons, and Western private companies have rapidly decoupled from the Russian market. As the conflict enters a new phase, Ukrainian negotiators and Western partners are now deliberating how to provide Ukraine with security guarantees as part of a possible negotiated settlement. This panel of distinguished experts will examine the likely issues and challenges that the EU, NATO, and the international community will confront in dealing with Ukraine and Russia following the war and assess what role they can play in any postwar security settlement.

Moderated by: Alexander A. Cooley, Director, Harriman Institute; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College

Co-sponsored by: IDIS (Institute of International Relations) and Columbia University's Harriman Institute.

This event launches a Chatham House paper of the same name. It details the laundering of monies and reputations by elites from Eurasia’s kleptocratic states, and the material and reputational damage rendered to the UK’s sovereignty and democracy.

* Event time is provided in local (GMT) time zone.

Alexander Cooley’s appearance at the TRT World Forum 2021 at an Expert Roundtable on Biden’s foreign policy and its implications for Eurasia.

This World Leaders Forum program features an address by President Vjosa Osmani of fthe Republic of Kosovo followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

Moderated by: Alexander A. Cooley, Director, Harriman Institute; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College

Co-sponsored by: Columbia University's Harriman Institute.

Registration required.

The Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade will hold a discussion on the future of American hegemony and American strategy in Eurasia.

Speakers:
Alexander Cooley
Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College
Director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute

Márton Ugrósdy
Director, Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade

Moderated by:
Tamás Péter Baranyi
Deputy Director for Strategy, Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade

Talk for the International Relations Department at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey.

Join the Hertie School for a virtual presentation by Daniel Nexon and Alexander Cooley based on their recent book Exit from Hegemony: The Unravelling of American Global Order.

In Exit from Hegemony, Cooley and Nexon explore three processes that have eroded US leadership: exit from above via great-power challengers, exit from below via weaker states leveraging the availability of new patrons, and exit from within via counter-order movements and political parties. They argue that Trump has been both a symptom and accelerant of these processes, and discuss what a new Biden administration can and can’t do to alter the trajectory of change in international order.

*event time on this page is in EST

Alexander Cooley will appear as a keynote speaker at a session about Civil Society and Confidence Building in Central Asia, organized by the Geneva Centre for Security Sector Governance. This session will be moderated by Prof. Sergey Markedonov, senior researcher, Euro-Atlantic Security Center, MGIMO Institute for International Studies, Moscow.

The objective is to map the best practices and outstanding needs of civil society organizations in Central Asia active in the area of confidence-building. Participants will be encouraged to share their experiences and actively participate in the discussions.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

13:20 – 13:30: Prof. Alexander COOLEY, Director, Harriman Institute, Columbia University

PANELISTS:

• 13:30 – 13:40: Introduction by Prof. Sergey Markedonov

• 13:40 – 13:50: Nuriddin Karshiboev, Chairperson, National Association of Independent Media of Tajikistan

• 13:50 – 14:00: Tajyka Shabdanova, Director, International Tolerance Fund

• 14:00 – 14:10: Vladimir Paramonov, Director, Central Eurasia Analytical Group

• 14:10 – 14:20: Ikbol Isakov, Consultant, local and international PVE projects and media trainer

• 14:20 – 14:50: Open discussion / Question & Answer

• 14:50 – 15:00: Concluding remarks by Prof. Sergey Markedonov

US President Donald Trump will be facing Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the November 2020 elections. Trump, who has made reasserting American sovereignty a cornerstone of his foreign policy stands in stark contrast to Biden who has emphasized rebuilding American leadership at the global level.

Has there been a fundamental change to the liberal order and, if so, what might explain this shift? Is the international order facing a global leadership crisis due to a US withdrawal and general turn inward amongst the American people? Would a change in US administration impact the future course of the international order? How can American security best be protected and the authoritarian influence of external actors on the world stage be limited?

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), propelled by the government’s will and the allocation of massive financial resources, has been changing the political and economic realities in Eurasia. A lot of money is moving around, creating opportunities for unscrupulous individuals to engage in corrupt schemes. Crony capitalism receives a major boost in the conditions of weak rule of law and lack of transparency and accountability. Thus, along with the transport, trade, investment, financial and people-to-people connectivity, fostered by the BRI, we see the flourishing of connectivity of corrupt elites in China and Eurasia. These networks are not limited to “emerging markets”, but are part of global arrangements facilitating shady deals and money laundering. The discussion sheds light on the shady side of the BRI in Eurasia, along with its actors and mechanisms, and outlines possible ways to improve the governance of investments.

Speaker(s): 

Alexander Cooley, Director, Harriman Institute, Columbia University; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College: "The Price of Connectivity: China’s Local Central Asian Entanglements"
Jonathan E. Hillman, Senior Fellow, Simon Chair in Political Economy, and Director, Reconnecting Asia Project, CSIS:"Road to Ruin: Why Corruption Flows along China’s Belt and Road"
Moderator: Nargis Kassenova, Senior Fellow, Program on Central Asia, Davis Center; Associate Professor, KIMEP University

This event is co-sponsored by the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University.

The University Consortium presents a book talk with authors Alexander Cooley (Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College and Director of Columbia University‘s Harriman Institute) and Daniel Nexon (Associate Professor in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University).

In Exit from Hegemony, Cooley and Nexon develop a new, integrated approach to understanding the rise and decline of hegemonic orders. Their approach identifies three distinct ways in which the liberal international order is undergoing fundamental transformation.

The event will take place at 5:30 PM GMT. For the latest updates please visit:

https://uc.web.ox.ac.uk/

Over the last few years, it has become apparent that competition for political power takes place in an ever widening array of arenas, with significant innovation in the tools being used to wield influence over others. Global interdependencies, once assumed to promote cooperation, can now be wielded as a weapons: economic sanctions, tariffs and investment screening can target vulnerable individuals and dependent states, while disinformation campaigns and social media operations can intervene at a relatively low cost in national elections and referenda. These developments suggest that the very repertoires of power politics are changing, with resulting judgments about what constitutes appropriate responses to actions by other states less sure than in the past. These developments provide an important, and often overlooked, context for assessing debates about the strategic direction of NATO and the EU.

Participants:

Stacie Goddard (Prof. Wellesley College), Europe and China

Dan Nexon (Georgetown University), Europe and US

Tine Gade / Morten Bøås (Norwegian Institute of International Affairs), Europe and Middle East

David Cadier (SAIS, Johns Hopkins), Europe and Russia

Moderated by Alex Cooley (Director of Harriman Institute, Columbia University)

Event organized by the Columbia University Global Center in Paris in partnership with the Harriman Institute and the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

Join for the second meeting of the 2019-2020 New York Russia Public Policy Seminar, a forum co-hosted by the Harriman Institute and New York University’s Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia. As the United States enters the next phase of the impeachment process, join a panel of experts as they consider what this means for Ukraine, Ukraine’s relations with Russia, and Russia and Ukraine’s relations with the U.S. moving forward.

This event is supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

PANELISTS

Oxana Shevel, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University

Olga Onuch, Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester

Jordan Gans-Morse, Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University

Keith Darden, Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University

Moderated by Alexander Cooley, Director of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University Joshua Tucker, Director of the New York University Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia

Join Harriman Institute Director Alexander Cooley and Narxoz University Rector Andrew Wachtel for a discussion of the challenges and opportunities facing Central Asia in 2020 and beyond. Among the topics to be discussed are Central Asia between Russia and China; prospects for change and growth in the economies of Central Asia; and internal political and social developments in Central Asia.

This event is free and open to the public. Registration required.

This World Leaders Forum program features an address by President Salome Zourabichvili of Georgia followed by a question and answer session with the audience.

Moderated by: Alexander A. Cooley, Director, Harriman Institute; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College

Co-sponsored by: Columbia University's Harriman Institute and European Institute.

Registration required.

This World Leaders Forum program features an address by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia on comprehensive government reforms, approach to regional security challenges, and Armenia's priorities at the United Nations related to peace and security, sustainable development, human rights and cooperation with the UN in promoting good governance, fight against corruption, eradicating poverty, and other areas. The Prime Minister's address will be followed by a moderated question and answer session with the audience.

Moderated by: Alexander A. Cooley, Director, Harriman Institute; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College

Registration Required.

Central Asia rests on a global crossroads. Lying along the historical Silk Road, ideas, people, and goods have made the journey from Europe to East Asia through this intersection for thousands of years. Presently, Central Asia continues to play an important strategic role for a number of major powers, including Russia and China. Furthermore, the United States maintains strategic interests in Afghanistan, and is keenly interested in maintaining a strong presence in the region. How are the competitive global roles of the United States, China, and Russia playing out in Central Asia? What are their interests? Does the United States have a clearly defined strategy? Join the NCAFP and a panel of distinguished experts on Central Asia for a candid discussion of these questions and more.

This event will feature Alexander Cooley and Ambassador Pamela L. Spratlen (Former U.S. Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan). Discussion will be moderated by Ambassador Susan M. Elliott (President and CEO, National Committee on American Foreign Policy and Former U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan).

Helsinki Commission hearing to probe autocratic abuse of INTERPOL

As modern technology has allowed political dissidents and human rights defenders to operate from almost anywhere on the planet, repressive regimes have searched for opportunities to reach those who threaten their rule from afar.

To silence dissent from abroad, autocrats often turn to the International Criminal Police Organization, known as INTERPOL, to file bogus criminal claims seeking the arrest and extradition of their political targets. This abuse of INTERPOL Red Notices and Diffusions enables autocratic governments to harass and intimidate their opponents thousands of miles away, even within free and democratic societies.

The U.S. Helsinki Commission will convene an expert panel to highlight how autocrats today use INTERPOL and other means such as surveillance, abduction, and assassination to punish dissent overseas. Witnesses will suggest how the United States and other democratic nations can defend against these threats to the rule of law domestically and internationally.

The following witnesses are scheduled to participate:

• Alexander Cooley, Director, Columbia University's Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College

• Sandra A. Grossman, Partner, Grossman Young & Hammond, Immigration Law, LLC

• Bruno Min, Senior Legal and Policy Advisor, Fair Trials

• Nate Schenkkan, Director for Special Research, Freedom House

Additional witnesses may be added.

According to the Tax Justice Network, between $21 and $32 trillion in hidden assets are held in offshore tax havens. The increasing outflow of money into the offshore world starves developing countries of government revenues, enables kleptocrats to hide their illicitly-acquired wealth, and allows global multinational companies to lawfully avoid paying hundreds of billions in taxes. Until recently, we lacked comprehensive and detailed academic studies for understanding the scope and inner workings of the offshore system. This panel brings together four leading scholars to discuss their path-breaking research on important aspects of the offshore world and financial system. Beyond sharing their latest research findings on global tax havens, the global citizenship market, wealth asset management, and the informal economy, our panelists will discuss the research and investigative techniques that they have pioneered to reveal important dimensions of the offshore world.

The term “oligarch” is increasingly used to refer to wealthy individuals connected to state power either through their own businesses or through influence on top-level government officials. At the same time, we have seen that many oligarchs from regions like the former Soviet Union “globalize” their lives, collecting multiple citizenships and residencies, employing international PR agents, advisors and lawyers, and engaging in transnational philanthropic activities designed to soften their images. On this panel, we bring together three leading professionals from the areas of law enforcement, journalism and civil society, each experienced in investigating the activities of oligarchs who have been implicated in grand corruption networks. The panelists will discuss some of the breakthroughs and innovative techniques that they have developed in their anti-corruption work over the last decade.

At this CFR sponsored event, panelists discuss Russia's foreign policy under President Vladimir Putin and its increased involvement with countries around the world, including those in neighboring Eastern Europe and Eurasia, as well as in Western Europe, the United States, and the Middle East.

Trillions of euros of corrupt funds are recycled through the global economy annually and less than 1% is being seized and frozen. The US has taken the lead in tackling this issue through the Global Magnitsky Act, banning visas and freezing the assets of corrupt individuals and human rights abusers. They were shortly followed by Canada, the United Kingdom and the three Baltic states, and there is growing consensus that the EU should adopt a similar legislation. Beyond sanctions, the EU also needs to do better at confiscating and returning assets in a responsible manner. Transparency International EU and CiFAR organized this conference to explore current EU developments on sanctions, including the prospect of the adoption of an EU-wide horizontal human rights sanctions regime and the upcoming review of the 2014 Directive on asset freezing and confiscation.

This World Leaders Forum program features an address, Estonia, the Land of Skype, the Digital Land, by President Kersti Kaljulaid of Estonia, followed by a moderated question and answer session with the audience.

Moderated by: Alexander A. Cooley, Director, Harriman Institute; Claire Tow Professor of Political Science, Barnard College

Co-sponsored by: Columbia University's Harriman Institute

The Harriman Institute at Columbia University, in collaboration with the Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE) and Columbia’s Center for Oral History Research, have recently completed an oral history project about the Harriman Institute's role in regional studies, academia, and its influence on shaping U.S. foreign policy toward the post-Soviet region. To celebrate the project, the Harriman Institute and Columbia Global Centers Paris put on a panel discussion about deteriorating Russian-Western relations, and the role of area studies in forming Western policy toward Russia.