Expertise: Civil-military relations, military regimes, NATO

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Senior Fellow

Professor Barany's long-standing fields of research are comparative civil-military relations and ethnopolitics (particularly political mobilization), especially during systemic political change.  He has also published in a number of other areas, including electoral politics, international organizations, nationalism, and Marxist political theory.  His intellectual hobby is learning about the effects of state size on the politics, economics, and international affairs of European mini-states (Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, etc.).

Professor Barany is at the early stages of work on a three-book project that seeks to explain key aspects of military politics in a global context. The first volume, Building Democratic Armies, illuminates the tasks and challenges of establishing democratic armed forces and civil-military relations in various political environments and what we can learn from a broad spectrum of cases ranging from post-World War II Japan to contemporary South Africa. The second book, Military Rule and Economic Development, will explain why some military regimes compile enviable economic records while most do not. The trilogy will be rounded out by Military Elites and Political Change, a study that tries to shed light on why generals respond to political transformations the way they do. In addition, he is editing a book with Robert Moser on democracy promotion entitled Is Democracy Exportable?

Professor Barany's recent books include Democratic Breakdown and the Decline of the Russian Military (Princeton, 2007), The Future of NATO Expansion (Cambridge, 2003), The East European Gypsies: Regime Change, Marginality, and Ethnopolitics (Cambridge, 2002), and two volumes edited with Robert Moser: Ethnic Politics after Communism (Cornell, 2005) and Russian Politics: Challenges of Democratization (Cambridge, 2001). His articles have appeared in Comparative Politics, Government and Opposition, Journal of Democracy, Political Science Quarterly, Political Studies, Security Studies, Slavic Review, World Politics, and other journals.

Selected Research:

• "Superpresidentialism and the Military: The Russian Variant," Presidential Studies Quarterly, Mar 2008
• "Resurgent Russia? A Still-Faltering Military," Policy Review, Feb/Mar 2008
• Democratic Breakdown and the Decline of the Russian Military, Princeton University Press, July 2007
• Ethnic Politics after Communism, Cornell University Press, 2005
• The Future of NATO Expansion: Four Case Studies, Cambridge University Press, 2004
• "The Tragedy of the Kursk: Crisis Management in Putin's Russia Government and Opposition," Government and Opposition, Summer 2004
• The East European Gypsies: Regime Change, Marginality and Ethnopolitics, Cambridge University Press, 2001
• Russian Politics: Challenges of Democratization, Cambridge University Press, 2001