Stephen P. Cohen

Stephen P. Cohen
Stephen Philip Cohen (March 9, 1936 – October 27, 2019) was an American political scientist and professor of security studies. He was a leading expert on India, Pakistan and South Asian security, He was a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution and an emeritus professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He authored, co-authored or edited over 12 books, was named as one of America's 500 most influential people in foreign affairs, and was a fixture on radio and television talk shows.
Biography
Early life and education
Stephen Phillip Cohen was born in 1936 in Chicago to Saul Cohen and Elizabeth (nee Passovoy). Saul was a Lithuanian Jew whose family had fled persecution in the Russian Empire (modern day Kaunas, Lithuania), while Elizabeth's family, also fleeing persecution, was originally from Dnipropetrovsk, now Dnipro, Ukraine. He was raised alongside his younger brother in the Albany Park neighborhood of Chicago where he met his future wife, Roberta. After graduating high school, he attended the University of Chicago where he studied political science, graduating with a B.A. and a M.A. He then attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he defended his dissertation and was awarded a Ph.D. in political science and South Asian studies.
Career
Cohen began his career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1965 where he taught for over 30 years and was professor emeritus. Early on, he was instrumental in founding the program in Arms Control & Domestic and International Security alongside Arthur Chilton and Ed Kolodziej. In 1971, he published his first book "The Indian Army: Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation", which established him as a leading scholar of South Asia.
Forming close bonds with many South Asian leaders, he was a personal guest of former President of Pakistan Muhammad Zia ul-Haq whom he interviewed shortly before his death. From 1985-1987, he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State. In 1992, he was a visiting scholar at the Ford Foundation in New Delhi. Cohen also spent time abroad, teaching as a visiting professor at both Keio University and Andhra University and at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in 2008.
In 1998, he joined the Brookings Institution as a Senior Fellow in the foreign policy program. For the next 20 years, he published numerous books, articles, and opinion pieces, and worked as consultant to numerous agencies and organizations. In 2017 was named a Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Brookings Institution.
Known as the "guru of gurus," Cohen was the first American scholar to work in the field of South Asian security studies, largely defined the field, trained many of its leading analysts, and was himself its most experienced and insightful practitioner. He also developed specific policy interests in nuclear proliferation, disaster management, and the application of technology to the prevention or mitigation of terrorism. He was a member of the National Academy of Science’s Committee on International Security and Arms Control. Following his death the International Studies Association named their paper prize "Stephen P. Cohen Best Paper Award in International Politics of South Asia" after him.
Selected bibliography
Stephen Philip Cohen (1971). The Indian Army: Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation. University of California Press.
See also
The Idea of Pakistan
References
External links
Brookings Institution profile
A complete review of Stephen P. Cohen on an Indian website
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
American political scientists
Historians of Pakistan
University of Chicago alumni
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty
1936 births
2019 deaths
American scholars of Pakistan studies
Indologists
Writers about Pakistan
Brookings Institution people