Brenda Shaffer

Brenda Shaffer (born c. 1965) is an American scholar who holds positions as Fellow with the Atlantic Council and professor at University of Haifa (on sabbatical). Shaffer was the former research director of the Caspian Studies Program at Harvard Kennedy School and past president of the Foreign Policy Section of the American Political Science Association. She specializes on energy in international relations and energy policy in the Caspian region and has written or edited several books of these topics, including "Energy Politics" and "Beyond the Resource Curse." Shaffer has also written a number of books on the topic of identity and culture in the Caucasus including explorations of Azeri literature and culture. She has been accused of lobbying for Azerbaijan and failing to disclose conflicts of interest. According to the 2019 book Lobbying in the European Union: Strategies, Dynamics and Trends, published by Springer: "research shows that her [Shaffer's] entire career has benefitted from financial support from sources tied to Azerbaijan's leadership".

Biography

Shaffer was born in the United States in about 1965. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay area, attending Burlingame High School (California). In 1982, while still at high school, she made her first visit to the USSR. She received her Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University and a nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. She is on sabbatical from the University of Haifa, where she is a professor in the School of Political Science.

Previously, Shaffer taught at the department of Asian Studies and at the Graduate School of Management, division of natural resources management, at the University of Haifa. and was the research director of the Caspian Studies Project at Harvard Kennedy School, where she had been a postdoctoral fellow at the International Security Program. Shaffer has also held positions as president of the Foreign Policy Section of the American Political Science Association, researcher and policy analyst for the Government of Israel and visiting professor with the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy, and she provides energy industry research and consulting to businesses and governments.

Shaffer is the author or editor of a number of books and has given congressional testimonies on several occasions in front of the United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs on issues related to U.S. policy in the Caspian region.

Short Bio

• Currently nonresident senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council; on sabbatical from the University of Haifa.
• 2001-2004 Post-doctoral Fellow, "Young Truman Scholar" three-year fellowship in the field of Middle East Studies, Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel).
• 2000-2001 Post-doctoral Fellow, International Relations & Middle East Studies, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel).
• 1999-2005 Post-doctoral Fellow, International Security Program, Harvard Kennedy School, Harvard University (USA).
• 1996-1999 Ph.D. School of History, Tel Aviv University (Israel). Dissertation topic: "The Formation of Azerbaijani Collective Identity: in Light of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet Breakup."
• 1986-1989 MA in Political Science (with specialization in Russian Studies) Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel). (MA thesis topic: "Soviet Power Projection— the View of the Military").
• 1983-1986 BA in Political Science and International Relations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel).

Lobbying for Azerbaijan

Shaffer has been called a lobbyist on behalf of Azerbaijan, and has faced criticism over her writing of political articles and books related to Azerbaijan while hiding her commercial ties to the Azerbaijani government. In 2014, she failed to disclose her ties to the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan when she wrote an op-ed for the New York Times about Russia's role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, prompting the newspaper's editors to add a note after its publication.

The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) described Brenda Shaffer as a Lobbyist, who "used oil money to build her academic credentials" and in exchange promoted pro-Azerbaijani positions, for example concerning Nagorno-Karabakh, and lobbied for Baku's agendas through multiple newspaper op-eds and media appearances, congressional testimony, countless think tank events and scholarly publications.

Publications

Books

• Co-editor of Beyond the Resource Curse (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012)
• Author of Energy Politics (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009)
• Editor of The Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy (MIT Press, 2006)
• Author of Partners in Need: The Strategic Relationship of Russia and Iran (the Washington Institute for Near East Policy).
• Author of Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity (MIT Press, 2002). The book was also published in Turkish (Bilgi University Press, Istanbul, 2008) and in Persian (Ulus Press, Tehran, 2008).

Book chapters and other publications

• "Energy Resources in the Eastern Mediterranean: Prospects for energy markets and regional developments" in Michael Leigh (ed.), Eastern Mediterranean Energy: Fuel for conflict or cooperation? (D.C.: German Marshall Fund, 2012).
• "US Policy and the Strategic Caucasus" in Frances Burwell and Svante E. Cornell, eds., The Transatlantic Partnership and Relations with Russia (Washington: Atlantic Council of the United States and Institute for Security and Development Policy, 2012).
• "Ethnic Politics in Iran," in Reuven Pedatzur (editor), Iran and Regional Hegemony (S. Daniel Abraham Strategic Dialogue Center in association with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2010).
• "The Islamic Republic of Iran: Is It Really?" in Brenda Shaffer (ed.), The Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press, 2006).
• "Iran’s Internal Azerbaijani Challenge: Implications for Policy in the Caucasus," in Moshe Gammer (ed.), The Caucasus (London: Frank Cass, 2004).
• "U.S. Policy in the South Caucasus," in Dov Lynch (ed.) The South Caucasus: a challenge for the EU (Chaillot Paper 65, EU ISS, December 2003).
• "Azerbaijan" in Waisman and Vasserman (ed.), Political Organizations in Central Asia and Azerbaijan: Sources and Documents (London: Frank Cass, 2003).
• "Azerbaycan Cumhuryetinin Kurulusu: Iran’daki Azeriler Uzerinde Etkisi", in Emine Gursoy-Naskali and Erdal Sahin (eds.) Turk Cumhuriyetleri (Amsterdam/Istanbul, SOTA Publications, 2002)(in Turkish).
• "Statement on The Caucasus and Caspian Region: Understanding U.S. Interests and Policy", Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Europe of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, First Session, October 10, 2001, Serial No. 107–51.
• "U.S. Russian Relations: Implications for the Caspian Region", Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, June 2001.
• "Postscript" in David Menashri (ed.), Central Asia Meets the Middle East (London: Frank Cass, 1998).

Criticisms

Shaffer's book, "Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity" received criticism from Touraj Atabaki, a professor of social history at the University of Amsterdam and a senior research fellow at the International Institute of Social History, who wrote that "Borders and Brethren is an excellent example of how a political agenda can dehistoricize and decontextualize history".

Shaffer's article "U.S. Policy toward the Caspian Region: Recommendations for the Bush Administration" has also created controversy with regards to the objectivity of Harvard's Caspian Studies Program. Ken Silverstein, of Harper's Magazine, in an article titled "Academics for Hire", wrote that "Harvard's Caspian Studies Program receives a lot of money from both the oil companies and from some of the governments... As I had previously reported, the Caspian Studies Program (CSP) was launched in 1999 with a $1 million grant from the United States‒Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC) and a consortium of companies led by ExxonMobil and Chevron Corporation. The program's other funders include Amerada Hess Corporation, ConocoPhillips, Unocal, and Glencore International...

Shaffer has also drawn criticism for writing on geostrategic issues regarding Azerbaijan under her academic affiliations, while working as a consultant to the President of SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan. On September 17, 2014, The New York Times published an editor's note to highlight that Shaffer did not disclose her affiliation to SOCAR when publishing an Op-Ed in its pages about the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. This has drawn criticism in other notable news outlets. In the 2019 book Lobbying in the European Union: Strategies, Dynamics and Trends, Shaffer is mentioned as an example of a scholar who has been caught moonlighting as a lobbyist, which in turn has damaged the reputation of the Atlantic Council, of which Shaffer continues to serve as a Nonresidential Senior Fellow. The book explains that Shaffer, whilst a member of the Atlantic Council and without her disclosure of being on SOCAR's payroll, has consistently tried to present Azerbaijan as supposedly being on the verge of becoming a democratic country, and has persistently tried to convince the US government to provide support for the ruling Aliyev regime of Azerbaijan. The book adds: "research shows that her [Shaffer's] entire career has benefitted from financial support from sources tied to Azerbaijan's leadership".

In 2021, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published an essay by Shaffer arguing that Armenia, with which Azerbaijan had just fought a war, should close its only nuclear power plant. The essay did not disclose Shaffer's financial interests. Discussing the incident, Eurasianet commented that "[t]o Caucasus watchers intrigued and depressed by the way Baku uses its oil wealth to buy praise and influence abroad, Shaffer is infamous."