About us and our approach to international issues

Transatlantic & Caucasus Studies Institute director Ziba Norman meeting His Excellency Francisco Flores, President of El Salvador 1999-2004

Photograph: Transatlantic & Caucasus Studies Institute director Ziba Norman meeting His Excellency Francisco Flores, President of El Salvador 1999-2004 (William Arthurs)

The Transatlantic & Caucasus Studies Institute was established as a charity in 2004, with the intention of opening up genuinely non-partisan debate on pressing geopolitical issues. We generate timely analysis -- both to challenge opinion on well-covered topics, and to spotlight areas of importance that have been overlooked or forgotten.

The changes that have occurred since the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11 are monumental. New alliances are being formed and old alliances withering. Many of our international institutions are in desperate need of reform. Governments meanwhile are at a loss correctly to identify where their strategic objectives and long-term interests lie.

An appreciation of these changes has led us to found the Transatlantic & Caucasus Studies Institute: a new kind of foreign affairs institute, one which combines a rigorous approach to research and fact-sourcing that would parallel the most established and respected of organisations, but not bound by outdated paradigms. Above all, we do not come out of any particular school of thought.

Our method is inter-disciplinary and our network includes academics, journalists and foreign correspondents, government leaders and students; our analysis is based solely on obtaining the most accurate and carefully sourced information available.

The Institute's goal is to open up new kinds of dialogue, by re-framing the questions unsuccessfully addressed in other contexts.

One of our primary aims is to ensure the right questions are being asked at critical moments, whilst incorporating a holistic approach to issues previously looked at in isolation. Our new ways of looking at these problems are often taken up more generally:

in advance of the gas crisis in Ukraine at the end of 2005, our director Ziba Norman's International Herald Tribune op-ed Russia's Gas Weapon (21 December 2005) brought the question of Russia's energy policy off the business pages, and opened it up for wider discussion in the media, both English-speaking and Russian;
we were the first to raise questions about the effectiveness of the United States' Visa Waiver Program: our questions are now the starting point for any serious discussion of the VWP.

Ours is a global dialogue, and by reading this page you are part of it... If you are interested in learning more, or assisting in any way with our current projects, please do contact us. We look forward to receiving both ideas and suggestions.

Transatlantic & Caucasus Studies Institute is a working name of The Transatlantic Institute.