Author

Alexander Cooley

ALEXANDER COOLEY is Claire Tow Professor of Political Science and Vice Provost at Barnard College. From 2015 to 2021, he directed Columbia’s Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe. He is a co-author of Exit from Hegemony: The Unravelling of the American Global Order.

By this author

The Age of Kleptocracy

Geopolitical Power, Private Gain

Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon

March/April 2026

Russia’s Hidden Empire

How Moscow Has Rekindled Its Influence in the Post-Soviet Space

Alexander Cooley

April 16, 2025

Trump’s Antiliberal Order

How America First Undercuts America’s Advantage

Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon

Jan/Feb 2025

The Power of Stigma

Shaming Russian Elites Has Helped Weaken Putin

Alexander Cooley and Brooke Harrington

October 27, 2022

Can Kazakhstan Shed Its Kleptocratic Past?

Fighting Graft in Almaty Will Also Test Western Anticorruption Commitments

Alexander Cooley

May 2, 2022

A False Dawn for Liberalism?

Why the War in Ukraine May Not Revive the West

Alexander Cooley and Daniel Nexon

March 29, 2022

The Real Crisis of Global Order

Illiberalism on the Rise

Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon

Jan/Feb 2022

A Post-American Central Asia

How the Region Is Adapting to the U.S. Defeat in Afghanistan

Alexander Cooley

August 23, 2021

The Illiberal Tide

Why the International Order Is Tilting Toward Autocracy

Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon

March 26, 2021

How Hegemony Ends

The Unraveling of American Power

Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon

July/Aug 2020

Rank Has Its Privileges

How International Ratings Dumb Down Global Governance

Alexander Cooley and Jack Snyder

Nov/Dec 2015

Putin’s Potemkin Intervention

The Weakness of Moscow’s Syrian Adventure

Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon

October 18, 2015

The New Great Game in Central Asia

Geopolitics in a Post-Western World

Alexander Cooley

August 7, 2012

Bahrain’s Base Politics

The Arab Spring and America’s Military Bases

Alexander Cooley and Daniel H. Nexon

April 5, 2011

Cooperation Gets Shanghaied

China, Russia, and the SCO

Alexander Cooley

December 14, 2009

Base Politics

Alexander Cooley

Nov/Dec 2005