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SIPA Faculty
Stephen Sestanovich
International Affairs Building, Room 1234
Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor
Phone: 212-854-9081
ss2059@columbia.edu
Biography:
Stephen Sestanovich joined SIPA's faculty in the fall of 2001 as the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Affairs.
Professor Sestanovich specializes in Soviet and East European studies, strategic planning and international studies, and foreign policy. He has written and edited several books on those topics, among which are Rethinking Russia's National Interests, which he edited (Center for Strategic and International Studies February 1994), Coping With Gorbachev's Soviet Union (Center for Strategic and International Studies August 1988), and others. He was also the editor of four volumes of Creating the Post-Communist Order, a publication of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Stephen Sestanovich has had a long and diverse professional career. In 1997 he assumed the position of ambassador-at-large and special advisor to the Secretary of State on the New Independent States (NIS). As principal advisor to the Secretary on New Independent States, Ambassador Sestanovich was responsible for the overall coordination of U.S. relation with and assistance to the NIS both within the Department and with other Government entities. He also served as the principal spokesman for the administration and the Department of State before Congress and the public on policy toward the NIS.
Before joining the Department of State, Ambassador Sestanovich was the vice president for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversaw the Endowment's policy research center in Moscow and its program of post-Soviet studies in Washington. From 1987 to 1994, Dr. Sestanovich was director of Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 1984 to 1987, he was senior director for policy development at the National Security Council. Dr. Sestanovich served as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the Department of State from 1981 to 1984; and was senior legislative assistant for foreign policy to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from 1980 to 1981. Professor Sestanovich was also George F. Kennan Senior Fellow in Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.
Sestanovich earned a BA degree from Cornell University in 1972 and a PhD in government from Harvard University in 1978. From 1972 to 1973 he also completed graduate study at Columbia University. From 1979 to 1980 he was a visiting assistant professor of political science at Columbia University, and from 1978 to 1980 he was appointed assistant professor of political science, graduate faculty, at the New School for Social Research.
Research Interests: American Foreign Policy, Russia, Former USSR