Stephen P. Cohen
American political scientist
Stephen Philip Cohen (March 9, 1936 – October 27, 2019) was an American political scientist and professor of security studies. He was a leading expert on India, Pakistan and South Asian security, He was a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution and an emeritus professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He authored, co-authored or edited over 12 books, was named as one of America's 500 most influential people in foreign affairs, and was a fixture on radio and television talk shows.
Biography
Early life and education
Stephen Phillip Cohen was born in 1936 in Chicago to Lithuanian Jews. After graduating high school, he attended the University of Chicago where he studied political science, graduating with a B.A. and a M.A. He then attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he defended his dissertation and was awarded a Ph.D. in political science and South Asian studies.
Career
Cohen began his career at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1965 where he taught for over 30 years and was professor emeritus. Early on, he was instrumental in founding the program in Arms Control & Domestic and International Security alongside Arthur Chilton and Ed Kolodziej. In 1971, he published his first book "The Indian Army: Its Contribution to the Development of a Nation", which established him as a leading scholar of South Asia.
Forming close bonds with many South Asian leaders, he was a personal guest of former President of Pakistan Muhammad Zia ul-Haq whom he interviewed shortly before his death. From 1985 to 1987, he was a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Stephen P. Cohen” is american political scientist. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Stephen, Cohen and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7610165. VIAF identifies the subject as 104979. The Library of Congress control number is n79064765. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1936, 2019, 1965 and 1971.
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This entry incorporates text from “Stephen P. Cohen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.