Ian Bremmer

Ian Bremmer
Ian Bremmer, photo credit: Stephen Voss
Born	November 12, 1969 (1969-11-12) United States
Occupation	Political scientist, author, entrepreneur
Nationality	United States
Education	B.A., Tulane University M.A., Ph.D., Stanford University

Ian Bremmer (born November 12, 1969) is an American political scientist specializing in US foreign policy, states in transition, and global political risk. He is the president and founder of Eurasia Group, a leading global political risk research and consulting firm, and a professor at Columbia University. Eurasia Group provides financial, corporate, and government clients with information and insight on how political developments move markets. Bremmer is of Armenian and German descent.

Bremmer’s books include The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall (Simon & Schuster, 2006), named a Book of the Year by The Economist magazine, and The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing (Oxford University Press, 2009, with Preston Keat). His most recent book, the national bestseller The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations (Portfolio, May 2010), details the very old global phenomenon of state capitalism and its implications for economics and politics.

Bremmer is a frequent writer and commentator in the media. He is a contributor for the Financial Times A-List and writes "The Call" blog on ForeignPolicy.com; he has also published articles in the Washington Post, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Harvard Business Review, and Foreign Affairs. He is a panelist for CNN International's "Connect the World" and appears regularly on CNBC, Fox News Channel, National Public Radio, and other networks.

Bremmer is most widely known for advances in political risk; called the "rising guru" in the field by the Economist and, more directly, bringing political science as a discipline to the financial markets. In 2001, Bremmer created Wall Street’s first global political risk index, now the GPRI (Global Political Risk Index) —a joint venture with investment bank Citigroup. Bremmer's definition of an emerging market as "a country where politics matters at least as much as economics to the market" is a standard reference in the political risk field.

Among his professional appointments, Bremmer serves on the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and the Advisory Board of the Westport Public Library. In 2007, he was named as a 'Young Global Leader' of the World Economic Forum, and in 2010 was appointed Chair of the Forum's Global Agenda Council for Geopolitical Risk.

Bremmer received his B.A. at Tulane University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University in 1994. He then served on the faculty of the Hoover Institution where, at 25, he became the Institution’s youngest ever National Fellow. He has held research and faculty positions at Columbia University (where he presently teaches), the EastWest Institute, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the World Policy Institute, where he has served as Senior Fellow since 1997.

Key concepts

The J-Curve

Bremmer's J curve outlines the link between a country's openness and its stability. While many countries are stable because they are open (the United States, France, Japan), others are stable because they are closed (North Korea, Cuba, Iraq under Saddam Hussein). States can travel both forward (right) and backwards (left) along this J curve, so stability and openness are never secure. The J is steeper on the left hand side, as it is easier for a leader in a failed state to create stability by closing the country than to build a civil society and establish accountable institutions; the curve is higher on the far right than left because states that prevail in opening their societies (Eastern Europe, for example) ultimately become more stable than authoritarian regimes.

State Capitalism

Ian Bremmer describes state capitalism as a system in which the state dominates markets primarily for political gain. In his book, The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations (New York: Portfolio, 2010), Bremmer describes China as the primary driver for the rise of state capitalism as a challenge to the free market economies of the developed world, particularly in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

G-Zero

The term G-Zero refers to a breakdown in global leadership brought about by a decline of Western influence and the inability of other nations to fill the void. It is a reference to a perceived shift away from the pre-eminence of the Group of Seven industrialized countries and the expanded Group of Twenty, which includes major emerging powers like China, India, Brazil, Turkey, and others. According to Bremmer, in the G-Zero, no country or group of countries has the political and economic leverage to drive an international agenda or provide global public goods.

Selected bibliography

Books

• Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World. (New York: Portfolio, May 2012). ISBN 978-1591844686

• The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations. (New York: Portfolio, 2010). ISBN 978-1591843016
• The Fat Tail: The Power of Political Knowledge for Strategic Investing. (with Preston Keat), (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009; revised paperback, 2010). ISBN 0-195-32855-8
• Managing Strategic Surprise: Lessons from Risk Management & Risk Assessment. (edited with Paul Bracken and David Gordon), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). ISBN 0-521-88315-6
• The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall. (Simon & Schuster, 2006; revised paperback, 2007). ISBN 0-7432-7471-7
• New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations. (edited with Raymond Taras), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). ISBN 0-521-57799-3
• Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States. (edited with Raymond Taras), (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). ISBN 0-521-43860-8
• Soviet Nationalities Problems. (edited with Norman Naimark), (Stanford: Stanford Center for Russian and East European Studies: 1990). ISBN 0-87725-195-9
• Bremmer's books at Google Books
• "The J Curve" official website
• "The Fat Tail" official website
• "The End of the Free Market" official website

Essays

• France's What-If Campaign, International Herald Tribune, February 16, 2012
• Far Too Soon to Write Off America, Financial Times,, December 28, 2011
• An Upbeat View of America's 'Bad' Year, with David F. Gordon, International Herald Tribune, December 28, 2011
• Searching the World for Good Governance, International Herald Tribune, November 27, 2011
• Whose Economy Has It Worst?, with Nouriel Roubini, Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2011
• The G-Zero Order, with David F. Gordon, International Herald Tribune, October 26, 2011
• Hungary's New Path is the Hidden Danger to Europe, Financial Times, October 9, 2011
• China's Bumpy Road Ahead, Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2011
• On the Economy, Be Careful What You Wish For, Foreign Policy, July/August 2011
• The Collateral Damage in Pakistan, International Herald Tribune, May 5, 2011
• Washington's Stark Choice: Democracy or Riyadh, Financial Times, March 17, 2011
• Get Ready for a Growth Supercycle, Wall Street Journal, March 2, 2011
• The J Curve Hits the Middle East, Financial Times, February 16, 2011
• A G-Zero World, with Nouriel Roubini, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2011
• Cyberteeth Bared, with Parag Khanna, International Herald Tribune, December 22, 2010
• The Fourth Wave, Foreign Policy, December 2010
• Democracy in Cyberspace, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2010
• Japan's Overblown Anxiety, International Herald Tribune, November 16, 2010
• Paradise Lost: Why Fallen Markets Will Never Be the Same, with Nouriel Roubini, Institutional Investor, September 2010
• BP's Lucky it Spilled in US, not Chinese Waters, USA Today, July 14, 2010
• Sagging Global Growth Requires Us To Act, with Nouriel Roubini, The Financial Times, July 12, 2010
• When the State Battles the Corporation, The International Herald Tribune, June 23, 2010
• Dangerous Insecurity, The International Herald Tribune, May 25, 2010
• As Free Market Democracies Flail, Watch Out for China, USA Today, May 25, 2010
• The Long Shadow of the Invisible Hand, The Wall Street Journal, May 22, 2010
• Fight of the Century, Prospect, April 2010
• At Davos, All the Globalizers are Gone, Washington Post, January 29, 2010
• A Year of US-China Discord, with David Gordon, Project Syndicate, January 2010
• State Capitalism Comes of Age, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2009
• AIG and 'Political Risk', with Sean West, The Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2009
• Outrage is an Unaffordable Luxury, The Washington Post, March 18, 2009
• Expect the World Economy to Suffer through 2009, with Nouriel Roubini, The Wall Street Journal, January 23, 2009
• Reasons to be Gloomy, Slate, September 18, 2008
• Threat or Opportunity? What Sovereign Wealth Funds Mean for US Companies, with Juan Pujadas, The View, Summer 2008
• A Political Scientist in China, Slate, October 5, 2007
• The Dawn of the Next Cold War, Newsweek International, February 26, 2007
• In the Right Direction, The National Interest, Jan/Feb 2007
• Hedging Political Risk in China, with Fareed Zakaria, Harvard Business Review, November 2006
• Lowering the Temperature, Comment is Free, October 20, 2006
• The World is J-Curved, Washington Post, October 1, 2006
• Prices Transform Oil into a Weapon, International Herald Tribune, August 27, 2005
• Managing Risk in an Unstable World, Harvard Business Review, June 2005
• George Kennan's Lessons for the War on Terror, International Herald Tribune, March 24, 2005
• Diary of a Political Scientist, Slate, February 2–6, 2004
• Ian Bremmer’s articles at Project Syndicate

Blogs

• Bremmer Davos blog for the Financial Times
• Bremmer's "The Call" blog on ForeignPolicy.com
• Bremmer's blog on Reuters

Interviews

• Ian Bremmer on Charlie Rose
• Bremmer interviews on The Daily Show
• PWC interview with Bremmer, CEOs
• PWC interview with Bremmer on political risk
• Mckinsey Quarterly interview with Bremmer
• Bremmer at the Council on Foreign Relations
• Bremmer interviews in The Big Think
• Bremmer interview in Newsweek
• Bremmer's J Curve in the Daily Telegraph
• Bremmer's End of the Free Market in the Daily Telegraph
• The J Curve on BBC Newsnight
• SFO interview with Bremmer
• Foreign Policy Association interview with Bremmer
• Barrons interview with Bremmer
• Financial Times interview with Bremmer
• Reuters interview with Bremmer
• Foreign Policy interview with Bremmer and Nouriel Roubini
• Spears interview with Bremmer
• Strategy & Business interview with Bremmer
• The Big Interview with Bremmer on The Wall Street Journal
• Bremmer interview in the Washington Post
• Bremmer guest hosts CNBC Squawk Box

Testimony

• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Congressional Ways & Means Committee, US-China relations

Research

Ian Bremmer's research interests include:

• International political economy;
• Geoeconomics and geopolitics;
• States in transition and global emerging markets;
• US foreign policy

Current appointments

• Senior Fellow, World Policy Institute
• Adjunct Professor, School for International and Public Affairs, Columbia University
• Founding Chair, Global Agenda Council on Geopolitical Risk, World Economic Forum
• Member, Council on Foreign Relations
• Member, International Institute for Strategic Studies

External links

Ian Bremmer

• Bremmer webpage
• Bremmer bio at Eurasia Group
• Ian Bremmer on Facebook
• Ian Bremmer on Twitter
• RSA Vision webcasts - Ian Bremmer on "The Fat Tail"
• Bremmer's op-ed commentaries on Project Syndicate.

Eurasia Group

• Official website
• Economist profile of Eurasia Group
• Google News on Eurasia Group