Barnett Richard Rubin (born January 10, 1950"Barnett Richard Rubin". Contemporary Authors Online. March 29, 2007. Retrieved on December 18, 2010.) is an American political scientist and a leading expert on Afghanistan and South Asia. He is the author of eight books and is currently senior fellow and director at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, a leading foreign policy center. He was previously senior advisor to the US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. He has advised the United Nations, NATO, the United States, and the Afghan government on numerous policy matters, including aid policy, security policy, and diplomatic strategy.
Early life and education Raised in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, area, he received his BA in history from Yale University and his MA and PhD in political science from the University of Chicago in 1982. He also received a Fulbright Fellowship to study at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris in 1977–1978.
He is fluent in English, French, and Hebrew, and intermediate in Arabic, Persian, and German.
Professional work Rubin is director of studies and senior fellow at the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) of New York University, where has worked since July 2000. From April 2009 until October 2013, he was the senior adviser to the special representative of for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the US Department of State.
Between 1994 and 2000, he served as director of the Center for Preventive Action and Director, Peace, and Conflict Studies at New York City's Council on Foreign Relations.
He was associate professor of political science and director of the Center for the Study of Central Asia at Columbia University from 1990 to 1996. Previous to this, he was a Jennings Randolph Peace Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and assistant professor of political science at Yale University.
In November–December 2001 Rubin served as special advisor to the UN special representative of the secretary general for Afghanistan during the negotiations that led to 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.
Between 1996 and 1998, he served on the US secretary of state's Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad.
Works Books
Blood on the Doorstep: The Politics of Preventive Action, Century Foundation Press, 2002
Toward Comprehensive Peace in Southeast Europe: Conflict Prevention in the South Balkans, Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1996. ,
Also in other publications
Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, Lloyd I. Rudolph, editors, "The U.S. Response to the JVP Insurgency in Sri Lanka," Coordination of Complexity in South Asia: A Study for the Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.) Reprinted in Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, editors, The Regional Imperative: The Administration of U.S. Foreign Policy Towards South Asian States under Presidents Johnson and Nixon (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Co., 1980). "Statistical Evaluation of Human Rights Violations: Implications for Policy," In U.S. Foreign Policy and Human Rights, Paula Newberg, editor, (New York: New York University Press, 1980). Feudal Revolt and State Building: The 1938 Sikar Agitation in Jaipur State (Delhi: South Asia Publications, 1983). "Economic Liberalisation and the Indian State," Third World Quarterly 7 (October 1985), pp. 942–957. "Journey to the East: Industrialization in India and the Chinese Experience," in Dilip K. Basu and John Richard Sisson, eds. Social and Economic Development in India: A Reassessment (New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 1985), pp. 67–88. "Afghan Resistances," Third World Affairs 1986. (London: Third World Foundation for Social and Economic Studies, 1986), pp. 468–472. "Financing Gross Capital Formation in the Indian Public Sector: A Quantitative Model," Economic and Political Weekly (November 1–8, 1986), pp. 1943–1950. "The Civil Liberties Movement in India: New Approaches to the State and Social Change." Asian Survey (March 1987), pp. 371–392. "India," in International Handbook of Human Rights, Jack Donnelly and Rhoda Howard, eds. (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), pp. 135–160. "Human Rights in Afghanistan." In Rosanne Klass, editor, Afghanistan: The Great Game Revisited (New York: Freedom House, 1987), pp. 288–305. With Jeri Laber. A Nation Is Dying: Afghanistan Under the Soviets. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1988. "Lineages of the State in Afghanistan," Asian Survey 28 (November 1988), pp. 1188–1209. With Patricia Gossman, "Accounting for 'Disappearances' in Sri Lanka: An Excerpt from an Asia Watch Report," South Asia Bulletin 8 (1988), pp. 75–87. "Afghanistan after Geneva: The Next Round," Orbis 33 (Winter 1988–1989), pp. 57–72. "Human Rights and Development: Reflections on Social Movements in India," in Human Rights and Development: International Views, ed. David Forsythe (London: Macmillan, 1989), pp. 110 – 118. "Human Rights in Mass-Based Ethnic Conflict : South Asian Examples of Dilemmas of Definition, Monitoring and Protection," in Claude E. Welch, Jr., and Virginia A. Leary, eds., Asian Perspectives on Human Rights (Boulder: Westview, 1990), pp. 186–205. "Afghanistan: 'Back to Feudalism,'" Current History (December 1989), pp. 421–424+. "Afghanistan: Political Exiles in Search of A State." Journal of Political Science 18 (Spring 1990), pp. 63–93; also in Yossi Shain, ed., Governments in Exile.(New York: Routledge: 1991). "The Fragmentation of Afghanistan," Foreign Affairs (Winter 1989/90), pp. 150–168. "The Old Regime in Afghanistan: Recruitment and Training of a State Elite," Central Asian Survey 10 (1991). "Political Elites in Afghanistan: Rentier State Building, Rentier State Wrecking," International Journal of Middle East Studies 24 (1992), pp. 77–99. "Post-Cold-War State Disintegration: The Failure of International Conflict Resolution in Afghanistan," Journal of International Affairs 46 (Winter 1993), pp. 469–492. "Redistribution and the State in Afghanistan: The Red Revolution Turns Green," in Ali Banuazizi and Myron Weiner, eds., The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1994): 187–227. "The Fragmentation of Tajikistan," Survival 35 (Winter 1993–1994): 71–91. "Contradictory Trends in the International Relations of Central Asia," Central Asia Monitor no. 6 (1993): 11–16. "Afghanistan in 1993," Asian Survey 34 (February 1994): 185–90. "Tajikistan: From Soviet Republic to Russian-Uzbek Protectorate," in Michael Mandelbaum, ed., Central Asia and the World: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1994): 207–24. "The Failure of an Internationally Sponsored Interim Government in Afghanistan," in Yossi Shain and Juan Linz, eds., Between States: Interim Governments and the Transition to Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995): 211–236. “Post-Colonial State Formation and Post-Cold-War State Disintegration,” in International Solidarity and National Sovereignty, pp. 39–66. Edited by Giandomenico Picco and Giovanni Delli Zotti. Gorizia: Istituto de Sociologia Internazionale, 1995. “Afghanistan: The Forgotten Crisis,” in Refugee Survey Quarterly, v. 15, n. 2 (1996), pp. 1–35. Also published as “Afghanistán: La Crisis Olvidada,” in Informe: Observatorio de conflictos 5 (1996), published by Centro de Investigación para la Paz (Madrid). “U.S. Policy in Afghanistan,” in Muslim Politics Report, 11 (Council on Foreign Relations, January/February 1997). “Central Asia: Problems of Wealth, A Wealth of Problems,” in 1997 Freedom Review Around the World, v. 28, n. 1 (1997), pp. 77–90. “Women and Pipelines: Afghanistan's Proxy Wars,” in International Affairs 73, no. 2 (April 1997), pp. 283–296. "Afghanistan," in Tom Barry and Martha Homey, eds., Global Focus: A New Foreign Policy Agenda 1997-1998 (Albuquerque, New Mexico: Interhemispheric Resource Center, 1997), pp. 195–198. "Arab Islamists in Afghanistan," in John L. Esposito, ed., Political Islam: Revolution, Radicalism, or Reform? (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Reinner, 1997), pp. 179–206. “Russian Hegemony and State Breakdown in the Periphery: Causes and Consequences of the Civil War in Tajikistan,” in Barnett R. Rubin and Jack Snyder, eds., Organizing the Former Soviet Space: Origins of Political Order and Conflict (London: Routledge, 1998). "Conclusion: Managing Normal Instability," in Barnett R. Rubin and Jack Snyder, eds., Organizing the Former Soviet Space: Origins of Political Order and Conflict (London: Routledge, 1998). "Introduction: Experiences in Prevention," in Barnett R. Rubin, ed., Cases and Strategies for Preventive Action (New York: The Council on Foreign Relations and The Twentieth Century Fund, 1998). With Michael S. Lund and Fabienne Hara, "Learning from Burundi’s Failed Democratic Transition, 1993-96: Did International Initiatives Match the Problem?," in Barnett R. Rubin, ed., Cases and Strategies for Preventive Action (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1998), pp. 47–92. "Afghanistan under the Taliban," Current History 98 (February 1999), pp. 79–91. "Prévention des conflits: l'Europe et les leçons de l'expérience." In Robert Bussière, ed., L'Europe et la prévention des crises (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2000). "Afghanistan: The Last Cold-War Conflict, the First Post-Cold War Conflict." In Wayne Nafziger, Frances Stewart, and Raimo Väyrinen (eds), The Origins of Humanitarian Emergencies (Vol 2). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999 or 2000. "The Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan," World Development 28 (2000), no. 10, pp. 1789–1803. With Ashraf Ghani, William Maley, Ahmed Rashid, and Olivier Roy, "Afghanistan: Reconstruction and Peacebuilding in a Regional Framework," KOFF Peacebuilding Reports 1/2001, Swiss Peace Foundation, Bern, 2001. "A Blueprint for Afghanistan," Current History (April 2002) pp. 153–157. With Helena Malikyar. "Center Periphery Relations in the Afghan State: Current Practices, Future Prospects." December 2002. http://www.cic.nyu.edu/pdf/CPReport0107031.pdf . _____. "The Politics of Center-Periphery Relations in Afghanistan." March 2003. https://web.archive.org/web/20051108192607/http://www.cic.nyu.edu/pdf/WBCPAfgh.pdf With Andrea Armstrong. "Regional Issues in the Reconstruction of Afghanistan." World Policy Journal 20 (spring 2003), 1: pp. 37–48. Reprinted in Glenn P. Hastedt (ed.), American Foreign Policy, Tenth Edition (Guilford, Connecticut.: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2004), pp. 67–73. With Andrea Armstrong. "Regional Conflict Formations in Central Asia and Central Africa," in Making States Work: State Failure and the Crisis of Governance (eds. Simon Chesterman, Michael Ignatieff, and Romesh Thakur), Tokyo: UN University Press, 2005. With Abby Stoddard and Humayun Hamidzada. "Through the Fog of Peace Building: Evaluating the Reconstruction of Afghanistan." Paying For Essentials: A Policy Paper Series: Center on International Cooperation, March 2003. http://www.cic.nyu.edu/pdf/THROUGH%20THE%20FOG2.pdf . With Humayun Hamidzada (editors). Towards a New Constitution for Afghanistan. Kabul: Maiwand Press, 2003. (English, Dari, and Pashto editions.) “Transitional Justice and Human Rights in Afghanistan.” International Affairs 79,3 (2003), 567–581. “Identifying Options and Entry Points for Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration in Afghanistan.” In Mark Sedra (ed), Security in Afghanistan (Bonn: ZEF, 2003). “U.S. and Iranian Policy in Afghanistan,” in Iran and Its neighbors: Diverging Views on a Strategic Region (Berlin: Wtiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, July 2003), ed. Eugene Whitlock, pp. 29–34.