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 (ISDP), and Research Director of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program (CACI), and joined the American Foreign Policy Council as a Senior Fellow for Eurasia in January 2017.

Cornell has often been criticized for promoting "a stridently pro-Azerbaijani position" and for his personal ties with the Aliyev family in Azerbaijan. He earned a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Studies from Uppsala University in Uppsala, Sweden. During the trip, Cornell and the other participants met with Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev,

In 2000 Cornell took part in the Baku-Ceyhan oil odyssey, a project dedicated at bringing the first barrel of Azerbaijan oil to the Turkey port of Ceyhan with Ural sidecar bikes.

From 2002 to 2003 served as the course Chair of the Caucasus Area Studies at the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State.

Cornell's op-eds and commentary have appeared in the Jerusalem Post, Le Monde, The New York Times, The Guardian, the International Herald Tribune, Le Figaro, 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.

Criticism A 2017 article by the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter uncovered that Cornell's ISDP institute is sponsored by the Azerbaijani lobbying organization European Azerbaijan Society, which engages in caviar diplomacy on behalf of Azerbaijan. Dagens Nyheter also revealed that the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute think tank, on which Cornell is an advisory board member, is funded by the Azerbaijani governmental think tank Center for Strategic Studies under the President of Azerbaijan (SAM), whose official purpose is to "create and maintain a positive image of the Republic of Azerbaijan abroad".

Ami Hedenborg, a spokesperson for Amnesty International Sweden, similarly criticized Cornell's relationship with the Azerbaijani leadership: "Azerbaijan is a country that grossly violates human rights, and if you sit as a Swedish researcher on a council funded by the regime, which is supposed to convey a positive image of the country, it is very worrying. You have to ask yourself: in whose interest am I sitting here and what am I conveying? What needs to be conveyed are the serious violations of human rights that are taking place."

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. Cornell, Svante E. The Wider Black Sea Region: An Emerging Hub in European Security, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute & Silk Road Studies Program, 2006. 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. Cornell, Svante E. Azerbaijan Since Independence, 2010.