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SIPA Faculty
Rafis Abazov
International Affairs Building, 13th Floor
Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs
Phone: 212-854-0016
ra2044@columbia.edu
Biography:
Rafis Abazov is an adjunct assistant professor at the School of International and Public Affairs and the Harriman Institute.
Abazov previously served as a Central Asian regional analyst and international consultant for regional media agencies and international organizations. He consulted on various international projects, including the Freedom House's Nations in Transit project, the Transition-On-Line (TOL) annual reports on Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, the Bertelsmann Foundation project on Transformation and Development, UNDP project on international migration and UNIFEM project on labor migration in the CIS.
Abazov was awarded the NATO research fellowship for research on foreign policy formation in Central Asia; visiting fellowships at the Institute of Advanced Studies of the United Nations University and the British Academy, and the Kennan Institute Fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Rafis Abazov has written several books and a number of articles on economic and political development in Eurasia and the Middle East. Abazov's works won the Harriman Institute's Publication grant in 2006, Kazakhstan's Academy of Journalism award in 2007 and Central Asian Geographic Society award in 2008.
From 2005 - 2009, Rafis Abazov supervised several SIPA student-led international projects, including a project on good governance in Kyrgyzstan (in cooperation with the UNDP), project on SME development in Kazakhstan (in cooperation with the World Bank) and project on media sector development in Russia.
Rafis Abazov holds an MA in history from Kyrgyz National University (1989) and earned his PhD in political science in Moscow, Russia (1994).
Research Interests: Public Policy
Publications:
Historical Dictionary of Kyrgyzstan, (Scarecrow Press, 2004)
Historical Dictionary of Turkmenistan, (Scarecrow Press, 2005)
Tajikistan (Cultures of the World), (Marshall Cavendish, 2006)
The Cultures and Customs of the Central Asian Republics, (Greenwood Press, 2007)
Palgrave Concise Historical Atlas Of Central Asia, (Palgrave, February 2008)
The Culture and Customs of Turkey, (Greenwood Press, 2009)
Abazov's research articles were published in Eurasian Studies, the Central Asian Survey, Nationalities Papers, Post-Communist Economies, Central Asia - Caucasus Analyst (SAIS) and some others. He has also contributed articles to the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia (2003), the Encyclopedia of Nationalism (2001), the Encyclopedia of National Economies (2002), and others.