Svante Cornell

Svante E. Cornell (born 1975) is a Swedish scholar specializing on politics and security issues in Eurasia, especially the South Caucasus, Turkey, and Central Asia. He is a director and co-founder of the Stockholm-based Institute for Security and Development Policy, and Research Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program (CACI), a Joint Center affiliated with the ISDP and Johns Hopkins University-School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

Education

Cornell studied at the Department of the International Relations, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey.^[1] He earned a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden.^[1]

Career

From 2002–03 served as the course Chair of the Caucasus Area Studies at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State.^[1] From 2003–07, Cornell served as Associate Professor in East European Studies at Uppsala University. He also briefly taught at the Royal Swedish Academy of War Sciences.

Aside from his positions at the ISDP and CACI, he holds the position of Associate Research Professor at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS and Associate Professor (part-time) in Government at Uppsala University.

Writings

Cornell's doctoral thesis was entitled Autonomy and Conflict: Ethnoterritoriality and Separatism in the South Caucasus - Cases in Georgia.

He is the author of a number of books, including Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus.

In 2009, together with S. Frederick Starr, he edited The Guns of August 2008: Russia's War in Georgia, which addresses the causes and consequences of the 2008 South Ossetia War.^[2]

Cornell's op-eds and commentary have appeared in the Jerusalem Post, Le Monde, The New York Times,^[3] The Guardian,^[4] the International Herald Tribune, Le Figaro,^[5] The Baltimore Sun, Dagens Nyheter, the Moscow Times, Turkish Daily News, the Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Times. He also published a paper for NRB Analysis.^[6]

Criticism

Due to an article he wrote on the 2008 South Ossetia War, Cornell was criticized by Mark Ames in The Nation.^[7][8] Ames rejected Cornell's New York Times op-ed that placed the blame for the conflict squarely on Russia's shoulders. Similar criticisms were voiced in connection with a book on the war co-edited by Cornell.^[9] In 2006, journalist Ken Silverstein criticized Cornell for apparent conflicts of interest related to a consulting company he headed.^[10]

American journalist Joshua Kucera, in his article about Cornell's 2010 book Azerbaijan Since Independence, thinks that "Cornell is generally pretty pro-Azerbaijan, and his framing of the situation as something inevitable seems to absolve Azerbaijan of any responsibility for its actions, which I think one could quibble with. But he knows Azerbaijan well, and this is an analysis worth considering."^[11] In 2016, Cornell told a conference that "I notice that the Washington Post has published nine editorials on the human rights situation in Azerbaijan in the past two years. I haven’t seen that about Saudi Arabia, about Vietnam, about Turkmenistan, about many other countries Azerbaijan looks pretty good in comparison to... The more we focus only on human rights, the less we will achieve."^[12]

Honors and awards

Cornell has received an honorary doctorate from the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan.

Books

• Cornell, Svante E. Small Nations and Great Powers: A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict, 2001. ISBN 0-7007-1162-7
• Cornell, Svante E. The Wider Black Sea Region: An Emerging Hub in European Security, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, 2006. ISBN 91-85473-27-8
• Cornell, Svante E. Georgia after the Rose Revolution: Geopolitical Predicament and Implications for U.S. Policy, Army War College monograph, 2007.
• Cornell, Svante E.; Starr, S. Frederick., eds. The Guns of August 2008: Russia's War in Georgia, 2009. ISBN 978-0-7656-2507-6
• Cornell, Svante E. Azerbaijan Since Independence, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7656-3002-5

References

External links

• Resume at SAIS Johns Hopkins University (archived)