Ph.D., Columbia University, Political Science
Professor. Associate Dean 1999-2011. Acting Dean 1998-99
Norman A. Graham is a professor of International Relations at MSU's James Madison College of Public Affairs. For more than 25 years, he also served as Director of the Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies. Most recently, Graham was honored with the Ralph H. Smuckler Award for Advancing International Studies and Programs at MSU (2023).
Prof. Graham's long-term research interests include international security and economic relations, international organization, Central and Southeastern Europe, and Central and South Asia. He has taught at Columbia University and led the Yale University Summer Seminar on International Business. He has also served as a Research Associate with the United Nations, the World Health Organization, and the Futures Group. He served as Associate Dean of James Madison College from 1999-2011, and Acting Dean 1998-99 and 2006-7.
His teaching at MSU focuses on international economic relations and development, the European Union and related international organizations, and the foreign policies of European and Eurasian countries. He previously directed the Center's summer overseas study program on "International Relations in Brussels" in conjunction with the Universite Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), the European Union, and NATO. He also previously directed the summer program on “Environmental Science and Policy in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin” in collaboration with several Greek and Turkish universities and research institutes.
His current research focuses on industrial and technology development in the European Union; technology transfer and defense conversion in Europe, Russia, and the former Soviet Union, the future of Eurasian security, and the political economy of transition and environmental policy in Central Asia and the Caucasus. He was the recipient of an MSU Teacher-Scholar award in 1993. His published research includes eleven books and numerous articles.
Graham earned his B.A. in European and Asian History from the University of Akron, his M. Phil. in International Relations and Political Economy from Columbia University, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University.
Norman Graham, with Professor Suhnaz Yilmaz of Koç University in Istanbul, published “Energy, Environment and Geopolitics in Eurasia: Search for Security in the Water-Energy-Food Nexus." Their book, published in 2024 by Routledge Explorations in Environmental Studies, provides an analysis of the energy and water scarcity challenges in various Eurasian countries.
Norman Graham, along with Folke Lindahl and Timur Kocaoglu, recently published, "Making Russia and Turkey Great Again? Putin and Erdogan in Search of Lost Empires and Autocratic Power".Their work takes a theoretical and empirical approach to analyzing the rise of power of Vladimir Putin and Recip Tayyip Erdogan. The book situates its analysis in the contexts of the historical assessment of the fragility of liberal democracy and the persistence and growth of authoritarianism, populism, and dictatorship in many parts of the world.
Norman Graham has published his ninth book: Turkish-Azerbaijani Relations—One Nation, Two States. The book was co-edited with Murad Ismayilov of Cambridge University and the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy/ADA University, and appeared in June 2016 in the Routledge Advances in Central Asian Studies Series. In some respects the volume reflects the emerging research and academic relationship that has developed between James Madison College, MSU’s Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies and ADA University in Baku. Indeed, the chapters were initially reviewed and discussed in a workshop held at MSU under the joint sponsorship of the three institutions in August of 2015. Graham also recently published “The Prospect for Regional Governance of Inland Fisheries in Central Eurasia,” which appeared in Freshwater, Fish and the Future: Proceedings of the Global Cross-Sectoral Conference, jointly sponsored by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, MSU and the American Fisheries Society in Rome, 2015. Graham is professor of International Relations at MSU's James Madison College and also serves as the director of the Center for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the MSU.
Norman Graham and Folke Lindahl co-edited the book "Eurasian Political Economy and Public Policy Studies," the first of a collection published by the MSU Press. The collection is entitled "The Political Economy of Transition in Eurasia Democratization and Economic Liberalization in a Global Economy."
Norman Graham was named by Michigan State University Press as the Senior Editor for a new book series, Political Economy and Public Policy in Eurasia.
“The Changing Dynamics of Kazakhstan’s Fisheries Sector: From the Early Soviet Era to the Twenty-first Century” with Pueppke, Stephen G., Nurtazin, Sabir, Konysbayev Talgarbay, Gibadulin, Farid, Sailauov, Meiirli, Water, 2022.
“Sustainability Challenges for the Social-Environmental Systems across the Asian Drylands Belt,” with Jiquan Chen, et al. Environmental Research Letters, 2022.
"Making Russia and Turkey Great Again?: Putin and Erdogan in Search of Lost Empires and Autocratic Power". Graham, Norman A., Folke Lindahl, and Timur Kocaoglu. Rowman & Littlefield, 2021.