About Mark Galeotti

Professor Mark Galeotti is an historian and political scientist who specialises in the murky realms of organised and transnational crime and Russian history and politics. Any connection between these fields is not necessarily coincidental. His is currently Clinical Professor of Global Affairs and Academic Chair of New York University’s SCPS Center for Global Affairs.

Born in the UK, he read history at Robinson College, Cambridge University and then took his doctorate in politics at the London School of Economics, after a brief time working in the City of London. From 1991-2008, he was based at Keele University in the UK, where he became Head of History. He was seconded in an advisory role to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, 1996-97, where his remit covered post-Soviet organised crime, the security and intelligence services and Russian foreign and security policy. He was Visiting Professor of Public Security at the School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers—Newark, USA, 2005-6, and joined the faculty of NYU in January 2009.

He has published widely, with 12 authored and edited books to his name (most recently, the edited volume The Politics of Security in Modern Russia, Ashgate, 2010) and numerous articles in the academic, professional and popular press, including a monthly column on post-Soviet affairs in Jane’s Intelligence Review 1991-2006. He is the Founding Editor of the journal Global Crime and was the European Editor of Low-Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement until 2005.

He is currently working on three main projects: a study of the Russian ‘mafiya’, a global history of organised crime and a two-volume edited collection on transnational crime and global security. His research is also in regular demand from commercial clients and government agencies, and he has given evidence before the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee and briefed officials from numerous British and foreign government departments.