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Isobel Coleman

Senior Fellow and Director of the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative; Director of the Women and Foreign Policy Program

Expertise

Democratization, economic development, civil society, gender, Middle East

Programs

Women and Foreign Policy, Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative, U.S. Foreign Policy Program

Featured Publications

All Publications

Video

Capital, Labor, and Productivity: Moyo on U.S. Economic Competitiveness

Interviewer: Isobel Coleman
Interviewee: Dambisa Moyo

Dambisa Moyo, economist and author of "How the West Was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly -- and the Stark Choices Ahead," shares her thoughts on U.S. economic leadership, China's rise, and the developments in the Middle East with Isobel Coleman, director of CFR's Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Initiative.

See more in China, Middle East, Economic Development, Geoeconomics

Academic Module

Academic Module: Paradise Beneath Her Feet

Author: Isobel Coleman

This module features teaching notes by CFR Senior Fellow Isobel Coleman, author of Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women Are Transforming the Middle East, along with other resources to supplement the text. Dr. Coleman demonstrates how influential Islamic feminist thinkers are driving social change in the Middle East to create economic, political, and educational opportunities for women.

See more in Middle East, Women

Podcast

Making Aid Work

A senior USAID official and CFR's Isobel Coleman discuss aid priorities in Pakistan and how development programs can be made more effective.

See more in Pakistan, Foreign Aid

Book

Restoring the Balance

Authors: Richard N. Haass, Stephen Biddle, Ray Takeyh, Gary Samore, Steven A. Cook, Isobel Coleman, Steven Simon, Martin S. Indyk, Michael O’Hanlon, Kenneth M. Pollack, Suzanne Maloney, Bruce O. Riedel, Shibley Telhami, Tamara Cofman Wittes, and Daniel L. Byman

Experts from the Council on Foreign Relations and the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution propose a new, nonpartisan Middle East strategy drawing on the lessons of past failures to address both the short- and long-term challenges to U.S. interests.

See more in Middle East, Diplomacy