I specialize in fairly murky and morally-dubious subjects: modern Russian history and security affairs and transnational and organized crime of both past and present.
Educated at Robinson College, Cambridge (where I read history) and the London School of Economics (department of government), I was based at Keele 1991-2008, becoming head of the History department before moving to New York University in January 2009, where I am Clinical Professor in Global Affairs at the Center for Global Affairs.
I have also spent time attached to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office as an adviser on Russian foreign and security policy (1996-97), visiting professor in public security at the School of Criminal Justice , Rutgers–Newark, USA (2005-6) and visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Extra-Legal Governance Institute (2007). While at Keele, I was also in my time director of both postgraduate and undergraduate studies, and also director of the Organised Russian & Eurasian Crime Research Unit (ORECRU), the only such specialized centre in Europe.
My most recent published works are the edited volumes Organised Crime in History (Routledge, 2009) and The Politics of Security in Modern Russia (Ashgate, 2011). My book Russian Security and Paramilitary Forces since 1991 (Osprey) is provisionally scheduled for an August 2013 release.
I am now working on a number of projects, including a history of Russian organized crime (for Yale University Press), a history of Russia’s wars in Chechnya, and a co-authored study of Russian politics. I also have a very long-term project, Criminal World, a monograph looking at the evolution of organised crime from the Mediterranean pirates and bandits of antiquity to today’s gangs.
I am founding editor of the journal Global Crime (formerly Transnational Organized Crime ), was the European Editor of Low-Intensity Conflict & Law Enforcement , and am also a member of the editorial boards of Crime & Justice International and The Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies.
I write a column, Siloviks & Scoundrels, for the Moscow News, and tweet on Russian and criminal affairs as @MarkGaleotti.
– Mark Galeotti
