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Kimberly Marten

Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science, Barnard College at School of International and Public Affairs

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  • School of International and Public Affairs

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School of International and Public Affairs

Kimberly Marten is the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, and a faculty member of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) and the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University.  She is Deputy Director for Development at Columbia''s Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies (serving as Acting Director in 2012/13), and a member of Columbia''s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. She is a member of the PONARS-Eurasia network, and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Marten''s current research focuses on Russian foreign and security policy. She has two major projects underway: a counterfactual analysis of what would have happened if NATO hadn''t expanded to include Poland and the Baltic states, and an exploration of how informal network politics encourage anti-Western nationalism. She writes frequently about current events, with recent articles in ForeignAffairs.com, the Washington Post''s Monkey Cage Blog (for example, here, here,here, here, and here), the_Huffington Post_, USA Today, the European Leadership Network, and the New America Foundation''s Weekly Wonk.

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<!-- old content, since updated 4/15 from Barnard's page, which is more current

Kimberly Marten is the Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science at Barnard College (where she earlier served as department chair), and a member of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Faculty of Political Science and the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.  She is the Deputy Director for Development at Columbia's Harriman Institute for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies (where she served as Acting Director, 2012/13), and a faculty  member of Columbia's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies.  She is also a member of the PONARS-Eurasia network, and a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
 
Marten's current research examines how patron/client politics and corruption affect international security. 
 
One project explores the impact of informal patronage networks on Russian foreign and security policy under Vladimir Putin.  Her initial arguments are published in a PONARS Eurasia policy memo, presented at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs in September 2013.  Marten recently discussed Russia on Al Jazeera America, MSNBC's Disrupt with Karen Finney, WNYC's The Takeaway with John Hockenberry and Todd Zwillich, and KPFK's Background Briefing with Ian Masters.
 
A second project analyzes local warlords across the globe, asking how their patronage networks impact sovereignty and state failure.  Marten's latest book, Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States (Cornell University Press, 2012), traces the development of warlordism and its consequences in the tribal areas of Pakistan, Sunni Arab areas of Iraq, and post-Soviet Georgia and the Republic of Chechnya in Russia.  She discussed the book on WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show and Wisconsin Public Radio.  The book was reviewed in an H-Diplo/International Security Studies Forum roundtable.  Her analysis of Ramzan Kadyrov in Chechnya was quoted in the Washington Post.  In International Security, she compares warlordism in Afghanistan and Somalia to medieval Europe and Republican-era China.
 
Marten's third research theme focuses on warlord militias and security sector reform in weak states.  Her related opinion pieces have appeared in the International Herald Tribune (reprinted on the New York Times website), on the Palestinian Authority Security Forces and the Afghan Local Police.  Other pieces appeared in Jane's Intelligence Review, The Monkey Cage blog, and  Prism, the journal of the National Defense University Center on Complex Operations. 
 
Her previous books include Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation (Princeton, 1993), which received the Marshall Shulman Prize; Weapons, Culture, and Self-Interest: Soviet Defense Managers in the New Russia (Columbia, 1997); and Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past (Columbia, 2004).
 
Marten earned her A.B. in 1985 at Harvard magna cum laude and Ph.D. in 1991 at Stanford. She was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation; a visiting scholar at Harvard's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies; a visiting scholar at Tokyo's Institute for International Policy Studies (via a Hitachi/Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship); and a visiting fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.  Her research has been supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Social Science Research Council/MacArthur Foundation, and the Government of Canada.

 

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Education

  • PhD, Stanford University
  • AB, Harvard University

 

Is Trump administration changing rhetoric on Russia? Kimberly Marten discusses on the Charlie Rose Show. (video at 10:30)

"Tillerson’s visit actually achieved some successes," writes Kimberly Marten in Foreign Affairs.

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