Speaker
Lincoln
Mitchell
Position
Lincoln Mitchell is a writer, pundit and specialist in political development based in New York City and San Francisco. Lincoln has worked on democracy and governance related issues in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, the Middle East, Africa and Asia. He also works with businesses and NGOs globally, particularly in the former Soviet Union. Lincoln writes and speaks about US politics as well, and was the national political correspondent for The New York Observer from 2014-2016. Lincoln was on the faculty of Columbia University's School of International Affairs from 2006-2013 and worked for years as a political consultant in New York City advising and managing domestic political campaigns.
Lincoln's current and recent clients include Freedom House, Democracy International, ARD/Tetratech, the Albright Stonebridge Group, the UNDP and DFID, the United Nations Democracy Fund, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, as well as several private businesses, political interests and investors working in the former Soviet Union.
Dr. Mitchell is an accomplished scholar and writer whose current research includes democratic rollback in the US, US-Georgia relations, political development in the former Soviet Union, the role of democracy promotion in American foreign policy and the future of baseball. His first book, Uncertain Democracy: US Foreign Policy and Georgia’s Rose Revolution, was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in 2008. His second book, The Color Revolutions, also from the University of Pennsylvania Press was published in June of 2012. His third book, The Democracy Promotion Paradox, was published by Brookings in 2016. Will Big League Baseball Survive? Globalization, the End of Television, Youth Sports and the Future of Major League Baseball, was published by Temple University Press in 2016 as well. Mitchell has written articles on these topics in The National Interest, Orbis, The Moscow Times, the Washington Quarterly, The American Interest, The National Interest, Survival, the Central Asian Survey, World Affairs Journal, The New York Daily News and Current History as well as for numerous online publications including the online sections of The Washington Post, The New York Times. The Forward and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Eurasianet, and Transitions Online. Lincoln has been quoted extensively in most major American, Georgian and Russian newspapers and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs and podcasts including Fox and Friends, All Things Considered, Lou Dobbs, Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera America, the Jim Lehrer Newshour, ABC Nightline, the Diane Rehm Show, Up and In: The Baseball Prospectus Podcast, the Cespedes Family Barbecast, Sports Byline and The BBC as well as in Russian and Georgian television. Lincoln also frequently blogs about American politics on several different online platforms.
Lincoln earned his BA from UC Santa Cruz and his Ph.D from Columbia University.