Kimberly Marten

Courses

Spring 2021

• Russia and the West (4 credits)
  Political Science GU4875 
  Exploration of Russias ambiguous relationship with the Western world. Cultural, philosophical, and historical explanations will be examined alongside theories of domestic political economy and international relations, to gain an understanding of current events. Select cases from the Tsarist, Soviet, and recent periods will be compared and contrasted, to see if patterns emerge

Fall 2020

• International Politics (4 credits)
  Political Science UN1601
  Lecture and discussion. The basic setting and dynamics of international politics, with emphasis on enduring impulses and processes.

• Independent Study (0-4 credits)
  Political Science BC3799 
  Students who wish to do an independent study project (I.S.P.), should speak with a Political Science faculty member willing to serve as sponsor, then fill out a Request for Approval of Credit for Independent Study (see Registrars link below) and obtain signatures from the sponsor and from our Department Chair. File this form with the Committee on Programs and Academic Standing, which must approve all requests. (It must be filed with the C.P.A.S. well before the Registrars program-filing deadline for the semester of the I.S.P.) Note that no credit is given for an internship or job experience in or by itself, but credit is given for an academic research paper written in conjunction with an internship, subject to the procedures outlined above. The internship and the I.S.P. can be in the same semester, or you may do the I.S.P. in the semester following the internship. A project approved for three or four points counts as an elective course for the purpose of the ten-course major or five-course minor requirement. No more than two such three- or four-point projects may be used for the major, and no more than one for the minor. An independent study project may not be used to satisfy either the colloquium or senior seminar requirement. Each instructor is limited to sponsoring one independent study project per semester. 

• Independent Res & Research I (0-6 credits)
  Political Science UN3901

Bio

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 and School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. She directs the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations at Columbia's Harriman Institute, and is a member of Columbia's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, PONARS-Eurasia, and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).Her most recent previous project analyzed the politics of warlords, asking how their patronage networks impact sovereignty and state failure. 

Education

• PhD, Stanford
• BA, Harvard

Selected Publications

Books

• Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation (Princeton, 1993) 
• Weapons, Culture, and Self-Interest: Soviet Defense Managers in the New Russia(Columbia, 1997)
• Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past(Columbia, 2004)

Articles and other publications

• With Olga Oliker, "Ukraine's Volunteer Militias May Have Saved the Country, but Now They Threaten It," War on the Rocks, Sept. 14, 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/09/ukraines-volunteer-militias-may-have-s...
• "Reconsidering NATO Expansion: A Counterfactual Analysis of Russia and the West in the 1990s," European Journal of International Security 3, no. 2 (June 2018), in press.
• "President Trump, Keep in Mind that Russia and the West Think about Negotiations Very, Very Differently," Washington Post Monkey Cage blog, July 25, 2017.
• Reducing Tensions between NATO and Russia, Council Special Report 79 (Council on Foreign Relations Center for Preventive Action), March 2017.
• Essay in SSF Policy Roundtable 1-7: Russia and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, March 27, 2017.
• "Trump and Putin, through a Glass Darkly," Asia Policy 23 (Jan. 2017): 36-42.
• "The Security Costs and Benefits of Non-State Militias: The Example of Eastern Ukraine," PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo 391, September 2015.
• “Debunking the Stationary Bandit Myth: Violence and Governance in Statebuilding History,” in Non-State Challenges in a Re-Ordered World: The Jackals of Westphalia? ed. Stefano Ruzza, Anja P. Jakobi and Charles C. Geisler (New York: Routledge, 2015).
• “Putin’s Choices: Explaining Russian Foreign Policy and Intervention in Ukraine,” The Washington Quarterly 38, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 189-204.
• “Informal Political Networks and Putin’s Foreign Policy: The Examples of Iran and Syria,” Problems of Post-Communism 62, no. 2 (April 2015): 71-87.
• "Reformed or Deformed? Patronage Politics, International Influence, and the Palestinian Security Forces," International Peacekeeping 21, no. 2 (June 2014): 181-97.
• "A New Explanation for Russian Foreign Policy: The Power of Informal Patronage Networks," PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo 274, September 2013.
• “Warlords and Governance,” in The Transnational Governance of Violence and Crime: Non-State Actors in Security, ed. Anja P. Jakobi and Klaus Dieter Wolf (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 23-29. Governance and Limited Statehood Series.
• "The Bane of Palestinian Infighting," International Herald Tribune, June 27, 2013.
• Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012.
• "Uncertain Loyalty: The Challenges of Cooperating with Militias," Jane's Intelligence Review, December 2012: 41-5.
• "Patronage vs. Professionalism in New Security Institutions," Prism (National Defense University Center for Complex Operations) 2, no. 4 (Sept. 2011): 83-98.
• “Warlords,” in The Changing Character of War, ed. Hew Strachan and SibylleScheipers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).
• “Failing States and Conflict,” in The International Studies Encyclopedia (a peer-reviewed compendium of scholarly concepts in international relations, a project of the International Studies Association), ed. Robert A. Denemark (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).
• “From Kabul to Kandahar: The Canadian Forces and Change,” American Review of Canadian Studies 40, no. 2 (June 2010): 214-36.

Full list of courses taught

• International Politics
• Russia and the West
• Colloquium on Political Violence and Terrorism
• Colloquium on International Security
• Colloquium on State Failure, Warlords and Pirates