experts
Sarah Chayes
Senior Fellow, Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program

about


Sarah Chayes is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment.

Sarah Chayes, previously a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Democracy, Conflict, and Governance program, is the author of Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security. She is internationally recognized for her innovative thinking on corruption and its implications. Her work explores how severe corruption can help prompt such crises as terrorism, revolutions and their violent aftermaths, and environmental degradation.

Before joining Carnegie, Chayes served as special assistant to the top U.S. military officer, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen. She focused on governance issues, participating in cabinet-level decision-making on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arab Spring, and traveling with Mullen frequently to these regions. Chayes was tapped for the job after her work as special adviser to two commanders of the international troops in Afghanistan (ISAF), at the end of a decade on the ground there.

It was a sense of historic opportunity that prompted Chayes to end her journalism career in early 2002, after covering the fall of the Taliban for NPR, and to remain in Afghanistan to help rebuild the country. She chose to settle in the former Taliban heartland, Kandahar.

In 2005, Chayes founded Arghand, a start-up manufacturing cooperative, where men and women working together produce fine skin-care products. The goal was to revive the region’s historic role in exporting fruit and its derivatives, to promote sustainable development, and expand alternatives to the opium economy. Running Arghand in downtown Kandahar proved to an instructive vantage point for observing the unfolding war.

From 1996 to 2001, Chayes was NPR’s Paris correspondent. For her work during the Kosovo crisis, she shared the 1999 Foreign Press Club and Sigma Delta Chi awards.

Along with Thieves of State, which won the 2016 Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Chayes is the author of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban (Penguin, 2006).


education
MA, Islamic History, Harvard University
languages
Arabic, English, French, Pashtu

All work from Sarah Chayes

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143 Results
paper
Fighting the Hydra: Lessons From Worldwide Protests Against Corruption

Recent uprisings in countries across the world suggest that there is much that other protesters can learn to pressure regimes for reforms.

· April 12, 2018
In the Media
Want to Limit Migration? We Can Start by Supporting Democracy in Honduras.

Honduran citizens are standing up for democracy, despite apparent efforts to rig the recent presidential election. The U.S. government should demand an impartial ballot recount.

· December 5, 2017
Washington Post
In the Media
Breaking the Wall of Corruption: Why Curbing Kleptocracy Is Essential to Global Security

The network model, or operating system model, of corruption creates a serious security risk because it risks driving citizens to violence and joining insurgent groups.

· November 9, 2017
Falling Walls
event
Can Legal Aid Change Power Dynamics? Experiences from India, Sierra Leone, and Elsewhere
October 27, 2017

Access to justice is a key governance concern in developed and developing countries alike.

  • +1
In The Media
in the media
Trump Flouting Norms Risks Venal Turn in United States

Why U.S. President Donald Trump’s business with corrupt foreign governments risks spreading corruption to the United States.

· October 23, 2017
In the Media
Do Trump’s Foreign Business Entanglements Threaten Our Democracy?

The Trump Organization’s continued business dealings with foreign governments, both at home and abroad, challenge the core principles of U.S. democracy.

· October 17, 2017
Los Angeles Times
podcast
Chayes, Coll, and Suraju on Corruption in the Oil Industry

Sarah Chayes, Steve Coll, and Olarenwaju Suraju discussed how corruption can become an inextricable part of an economy and how civil society and the U.S. government can work to prevent it. (Runtime - 22:21)

  • +1
· September 8, 2017
event
Security, Prosperity, and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa
September 7, 2017

The critical links between governance, prosperity, and security, while apparent, are too often forgotten.

  • +13
commentary
Kleptocracy in America

Corruption is not so much a problem for governments as it is an approach to government, one chosen by far too many rulers today.

· August 15, 2017
Foreign Affairs
event
Oil Corruption: How the United States Can Counteract a Curse
August 8, 2017

The oil industry has been entangled in serious corruption controversies. In response, the U.S. government has shown leadership over the past decade in helping bring more transparency to the sector.

  • +1
  • Steve Coll
  • Olarenwaju Suraju
  • Simon Taylor
  • Sarah Chayes