Barnett R. Rubin

Barnett R. Rubin is director of studies and senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation of New York University, where he directs the program on the reconstruction of Afghanistan. He also serves as a consultant to the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan of the U.S. Department of State. Previously he was director of the Center for Preventive Action, Director of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, associate professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Central Asia at Columbia University, and assistant professor of political science at Yale University. In November and December 2001, he served as special advisor to the U.N. Special Representative of the Secretary General for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, during the negotiations that produced the Bonn Agreement. He advised the United Nations on the drafting of the constitution of Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Compact, and the Afghanistan National Development Strategy. Barnett is the author of Blood on the Doorstep: the Politics of Preventing Violent Conflict (2002), The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System (2002; first edition 1995), and many other books and articles.