Leila Alieva

Leila Alieva (photo from National Endowment for Democracy)

Leila Alieva is the president of the think tanks the Centre for National and International Studies in Azerbaijan. . According to its website the CNIS is an independent research organisation based in Baku, Azerbaijan, with a goal of non-partisan research, covering a wide variety of issues such as regional conflicts and security; oil and politics; state and democracy building; foreign and domestic policies. (Not to be confused with the daughter of the current (2009) Azeri president Leyla Aliyeva, though their names are sometimes spelled the same)

Background

Alieva is often described as a ‘political analyst’ or as 'one of Azerbaijan’s most renowned social scientists' by background, but has spent almost twenty years in think tanks as well as in fellowships at Western institutions including US Universities and at the National Endowment for Democracy and NATO Defense College in Rome. She has also acted as a consultant to agencies of international governance such as the UN, OSCE, EBRD and others and has advised the oil industry. She seems not to have held an academic post in Azerbaijan in that period.

From 1991-1997 Alieva worked as Deputy director and then Director of the Baku based Center for Strategic and International Studies. This is claimed in a biographical noted on one of Alieva’s publications to be ‘an independent’ organisation.

Since 2001 Alieva has directed the Center for National and International Studies in Baku, but has also taken up a significant number of fellowships to western institutions including both universities and politically engaged placements such as with the NATO Defense College and the National Endowment for Democracy. It is evident that Alieva is prominent in the Azeri Foreign Relations elite and she has on occasion represented the Azeri government such as in 2005 when she was an 'unofficial' representative at the NATO Rose Roth seminar in Yerevan on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, according to Armenian sources.

Neoconservative connections

She has published with the German Marshall Fund of the United States an organisation with siognificant Neoconservative links and has spoken at events organised by the Foundation. There she shared a platform with Bruce Jackson a signatory to the Project for the New American Century and a member of the Neoconservative Committee on the Present Danger. The event was sponsored by the NATO Public Diplomacy Division and other Neocon connected people present included Ron Asmus of the German Marshall Fund and Heather Grabbe, Deputy Director of the intelligence connected Centre for European Reform. Among other speakers at the conference were Jiri Pehe and Jamie Shea. Along with Jackson, both Pehe and Shea also attended the Democracy and Security International Conference in Prague on June 5-6 2007 - as did Alieva.

Career

• 2007-8 - Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow, National Endowment for Democracy October 2007–February 2008.
• She has worked as a consultant to the United Nations, OSCE, and the U.S. government – Information last updated Fall 2007.
• 2003 and 2005 national observer of Azerbaijan’s presidential and parliamentary elections, in 2003 and 2005, respectively – Information last updated Fall 2007.
• 2005 - Academic Research Branch of the NATO Defense College under the Partnership for Peace Fellowship Program, in Rome between April and July 2005
• 2001 - founded Center for National and International Studies
• 2001 – fellowship SAIS (Johns Hopkins University) (2001)
• 2000 – fellowship UC Berkeley (2000),
• 1998 - served on the board of the Open Society Institute in Baku .
• 1997 - National Coordinator of the Human Development Report for UNDP
• 1995 – fellowship at Woodrow Wilson Center (Kennan Institute) (1995),
• 1993-4 - fellowship at Harvard University (1993-1994),
• 1991-7 - Deputy Director (1991-1994) and Director (1994-1997) of Baku-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
• Dr. Alieva was an advisor to the President of EBRD, as well as to the leading oil companies in Baku such as BP, UNOCAL, STATOIL, AIOC

Views

Iran

In 2007 Aliyeva encouraged the US to consult with countries neighbouring Iran before attacking it:

Political analyst Leyla Aliyeva believes that before starting operations against Iran the USA should consult with countries neighbouring Iran. She believes that if military operations do not last long, this will not affect Azerbaijan, otherwise the problem of refugees will arise. Since the Azerbaijani economy is directly connected with Iran economic problems will arise too.

Oil, Russia, Iran and the US

BOWERS: Yet like Kuwait, Azerbaijan has powerful and perhaps threatening neighbors, in this case, Iran and Russia -- neither of whom like Baku's new orientation toward the West. The U.S. is pushing Azerbaijan to build export pipelines that would avoid both countries. But Azeri political analyst Dr. Leyla Alieva (ph) says the country has to navigate carefully through these dangerous political waters. She notes Azeri leaders formed one international oil consortium without American companies taking part, so that Iran could. And she says Russia also cannot be sidelined in the Caspian oil rush, especially by the U.S.

DR. LEYLA ALIEVA, AZERI POLITICAL ANALYST: You have to take into account that Russian sensitivities are extremely high in the post- Soviet period, to the issues of its titles, its sphere of influence -- not necessarily related to oil. Probably the most sensitive would be the one-sided orientation to the U.S.

BOWERS: Alieva notes that Russia still has troops and other forms of influence in the Caucasus region and could try to stir up ethnic conflicts if it isn't satisfied with its involvement. Yet there are also signs that oil could have a positive impact on this troubled region. Just last year, Russians and Chechens were fighting a bitter war over the breakaway Republic of Chechnya. Now, however, the big international oil consortium AIOC is so eager to get its Azeri crude to market, it's using a pipeline that runs right through Chechnya and Russia. John Hollis (ph), vice president of AIOC, hopes the lure of oil transport money will keep the two sides from fighting again.

JOHN HOLLIS, VICE PRESIDENT, AIOC: Our perception or our belief is that the Chechens and the Russians decided that the only sensible thing was to work together. Neither would be a winner if nothing went that way.

Politics in Azerbaijan

The 2005 parliamentary elections were a step back for Azerbaijan compared not only with the beginning of the post-Soviet era, but even with the parliament of the first "oil-boom" era a century ago. Yet as frustrating as the fraudulent elections were, they also furnished grounds for hope. For civil society, the democratic opposition, and the Azerbaijani people showed themselves capable of carrying on a tradition of peaceful dissent whose roots go back to pre-Soviet days. Opening up political space for that democracy-friendly dynamism—and not turning out sharper technocrats to serve authoritarian rulers—is the key to a better future for Azerbaijan.

Affiliations

Academy of Latinity, member | Democracy and Security International Conference, Attendee |Centre for National and International Studies, President | Center for Strategic and International Studies, Deputy Director 1991-1994, Director 1994-1996 | European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Advisor to the President. | German Marshall Fund of the United States, published an article in one of their publications | National Endowment for Democracy Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow, October 2007-February 2008

Publications, talks, contact, notes

Publications

• Leila Alieva (1995) 'The Institutions, Orientations, and Conduct of Foreign Policy of Post-Soviet Azerbaijan', The International Politics of Eurasia: Volume 4: The Making of Foreign Policy in Russia and the New States of Eurasia Edited by: Adeed Dawisha; Karen Dawisha ISBN: 978-1-56324-358-5 Paper ISBN: 978-1-56324-359-2, 376pp. Maps, appendix, index. Publication Date: July 1995. M. E. Sharpe.
• Raimo Väyrynen and Leila Alieva (2000) 'The South Caucasus: The Breakdown of the Soviet Empire', War, Hunger, and Displacement: The Origins of Humanitarian Emergencies: Volume 2: Case Studies Edited by E. Wayne Nafziger, Frances Stewart and Raimo Väyrynen, ISBN13: 9780198297406ISBN10: 0198297408 Hardback, 520 pages Dec 2000.
• Leila Alieva (2004) ‘South Caucasus: Going West’ in Ronald D. Asmus, Konstantin Dimitrov and Joerg Forbrig, Editors ‘’’A New Euro-Atlantic Strategy for the Black Sea Region’’’ Washington: The German Marshall Fund of the United States.
• Alieva, Leila. (2006) Azerbaijan's Frustrating Elections Journal of Democracy - Volume 17, Number 2, April 2006, pp. 147-160 The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Leila Alieva (2006) Integrative Processes in the South Caucasus and their Security Implications NATO Defense College Occasional Paper N. 13 , Rome, March 2006

Talks

2004

• Leila Alieva input on 'Challenges to Democracy and Security' Think Tank and Experts Meeting “Towards a Wider Europe: The New Agenda” Bratislava, Hotel Danube, 18 March 2004, Organised by the German Marshall Fund of the United States in co-operation with the Institute for Public Affairs - Slovakia and the Slovak Foreign Policy Association funded by the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Office of the Government of Slovakia, the Public Diplomacy Division of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. On the platform with her were:Bruce Jackson, President, Project on Transitional Democracies, United States, Irina Krasovskaya, Human Rights Activist, “We Remember”, Belarus, Borys Tarasyuk, Chairman, Committee on European Integration, Parliament of Ukraine, Chair: Istvan Gyarmati, Director, Center for Euro-Atlanticism and Democracy, Hungary.
• 'Oil and Politics in Azerbaijan' Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, 25 August

Contact

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Notes

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