Alexander Cooley is the Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College in New York (on-leave Spring 2026). At Columbia University, he serves as Chair of the Faculty Advisory Board of the Columbia Global Center Athens, a member of the Committee on Global Thought, and on the executive committees of the Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe and the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. From 2015 to 2021 he served as the 15th Director of the Harriman Institute and, from 2022-2025, as Barnard’s Vice Provost for Research and Academic Centers. He currently is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow for Eurasian Affairs at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, a Non Resident Fellow at the Kennan Institute and an Academy Adjunct Fellow at the Queen Elizabeth II Academy for Leadership at Chatham House in London.
Professor Cooley’s research has examined how external actors have influenced the development, governance and sovereignty of the former Soviet states, with a regional focus on Central Asia and the Caucasus. His more recent work focuses on the transnational networks that support global authoritarianism and kleptocracy. Cooley is the author/co-author of eight academic books including, Dictators without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia (Yale University Press 2017), co-authored with John Heathershaw, Exit from Hegemony: the Unravelling of the American Global Order (Oxford University Press, 2020), co-authored with Daniel Nexon, and, most recently, Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics (Oxford University Press 2025), co-authored with Alexander Dukalskis.
In addition to his academic research, Professor Cooley serves on a variety of international advisory boards engaged with the region and has testified for the United States Congress and Helsinki Commission. Cooley's opinion pieces have appeared in New York Times, Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs and his research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the Open Society Foundations, Carnegie Corporation, and the German Marshall Fund of the United States, among others. Cooley earned both his MA and Ph.D. from Columbia University.
Books
Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics (Oxford 2025)
Undermining American Hegemony: Goods Substitution in World Politics (Cambridge 2021)
Exit from Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order (Oxford 2020)
Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia (Yale 2017)
Ranking the World: Grading states as a Tool of Global Governance (Cambridge 2015)
Great Games, Local Rules: The New Great Power Contest in Central Asia (Oxford 2015)
Research Interests
External actors and regional relations in Eurasia and Central Asia
Emerging Powers and Global Governance
International Sovereignty and Limited Sovereignty
Politics of United States and Russian overseas military bases
Politics of International Rankings and Ratings
Kleptocracy and Extraterriorial Authoritarianism
Western Values Advocacy in a Multipolar world
Recent & Ongoing projects
Anti-corruption Research
Russian Studies & Policy
Cold Wars and the Academy
Undermining Hegemony