Sarah Chayes

{{Infobox person

| name = Sarah Chayes

|image=Anti-Corruption Talk (23718872242).jpg

|caption = Sarah Chayes, 2015

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|mf=yes|1962|3|5}}

| birth_place = Washington, D.C.

| occupation = Journalist, political advisor

| alma_mater = Harvard University

| spouse =

| parents = Abram Chayes
Antonia Handler Chayes

| children =

}}

Sarah Chayes (born March 5, 1962) is a former senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former reporter for National Public Radio, she also served as special advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.{{cite web |url=https://www.sarahchayes.org/about |title=About Sarah Chayes |access-date= November 26, 2020}}

Background

Sarah Chayes is the daughter of the late law professor and Kennedy administration official Abram Chayes{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/04/18/us/abram-chayes-john-kennedy-aide-dies-at-77.html| title=Abram Chayes, John Kennedy Aide, Dies at 77| date =April 18, 2000| accessdate=August 15, 2015| work=The New York Times}} and lawyer and former undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force Antonia Handler Chayes.{{cite web

| url=http://fletcher.tufts.edu/Fletcher_Directory/Directory/Faculty%20Profile?personkey=6E05AB6E-94EF-4D34-8375-5F46D758A0DF| title=Antonia Handler Chayes, Professor of Practice of International Politics and Law| accessdate =August 15, 2015| publisher=Tufts University}} She is of Jewish descent.{{Cite web|first=Chayes |last=Sarah |authorlink= |title= Morocco RPCV Sarah Chayes spends A Night in the Taliban Kitchen |website=Andover Bulletin via peacecorpsonline.org|date= December 1, 2001|url=http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/2629/1009534.html |accessdate=|quote=The best were the two Tajik cooks who adopted me, made me sit in their warm kitchen, gave me their bed and served me endless cups of hot green tea all through the night as I worked. I snuck them apricots for the 5 a.m. meal as everyone filed in to take dishes of rice in a din of clanking pots and clattering plates. How incredibly surreal—an American (Jewish!) female the pampered pet of the Taliban during the death throes of their regime.}} She graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover (1980){{cite web| url=http://www.andover.edu/About/Newsroom/Pages/AndoverBestowsItsHighestHonoronSarahChayes.aspx| title=Andover Bestows Its Highest Honor on Sarah Chayes '80| accessdate =August 15, 2015| publisher=Phillips Academy}} and Harvard University (1984){{cite web| url=http://harvardmagazine.com/2015/01/off-the-shelf| title=Off the Shelf, Recent books with Harvard connections| date=December 15, 2014| accessdate =August 15, 2015| work=Harvard Magazine}} with a degree in history, magna cum laude. She was awarded the Radcliffe College History Prize. She then served in the Peace Corps in Morocco, returning to Harvard to earn a master's degree in history, specializing in the medieval Islamic period. Besides English, she speaks Pashto, French, and Arabic.{{cite web|title=SENIOR FELLOW DEMOCRACY AND RULE OF LAW PROGRAM|url=http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/712|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702141826/http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/712|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 2, 2016|website=Carnegie Endowment for International Peace|accessdate=October 21, 2017}}

Career

Chayes began her reporting career freelancing from Paris for The Christian Science Monitor Radio and other outlets. From 1996 to 2002, she served as Paris reporter for National Public Radio, covering France, the European Union, North Africa, and the Balkans. She earned 1999 Foreign Press Club and Sigma Delta Chi awards (together with other members of the NPR team) for her reporting on the Kosovo War. After covering the fall of the Taliban and the early weeks of post-Taliban Afghanistan in 2002, Chayes decided to leave reporting and stay behind to try to contribute to the rebuilding of the war-torn country.

Chayes lived in Kandahar, Afghanistan from 2002 to 2009. Having learned to speak Pashto, she helped rebuild homes and set up a dairy cooperative. In May 2005, she established the Arghand Cooperative, a venture that encourages local Afghan farmers to produce flowers, fruits, and herbs instead of opium poppies. The cooperative buys their almonds, pomegranate seeds, cumin and anise and artemisia and root dyes, extracts oils, essential oils, and tinctures from them, with which it produces soaps and other scented products for export. The cooperative is an associate member of the Natural Perfumers Guild.{{cite web

| url=http://www.arghand.org/founder.html

| title=Sarah Chayes, Founder

| date=February 11, 2014

| accessdate=February 3, 2015}}{{cite web

| url=http://www.naturalperfumers.com/memberlist.php

| title=Natural Perfumers Guild Members

| accessdate=February 3, 2015}} Chayes wrote an article detailing the story of the Arghand cooperative and her difficulties with the American aid establishment, which appeared in the December 2007 issue of The Atlantic.{{Cite web

| url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/12/scents-sensibility/306443/

| title=Scents & Sensibility

| last=Chayes

| first=Sarah

| date=December 1, 2007

| work=The Atlantic

| accessdate=February 3, 2015}}

Since leaving full-time radio reporting, she has been a frequent contributor to the print media, writing for Foreign Policy Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, and the Washington Post, among other outlets. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace maintains an archive of her writings.{{cite web

| url=http://carnegieendowment.org/chayes

| archive-url=https://archive.today/20150204114551/http://carnegieendowment.org/chayes

| url-status=dead

| archive-date=February 4, 2015

| title=Sarah Chayes: Senior Associate, Democracy and Rule of Law Program, South Asia Program

| publisher=Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

| accessdate=February 3, 2015}}

Chayes has been a guest of PBS's Bill Moyers Journal,{{Cite web | url=https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02222008/profile2.html

| title=Bill Moyers Journal: Sarah Chayes

| date=February 15, 2008

| work=Bill Moyers Journal

| accessdate=February 3, 2015}}{{Cite web

| url=https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12192008/profile.html

| title=Bill Moyers Journal: Sarah Chayes

| date=December 19, 2008

| work=Bill Moyers Journal

| accessdate=February 3, 2015}} WHYY-FM's Terry Gross, WNYC's Leonard Lopate, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, PBS's Charlie Rose, 2020 Bristol Festival of Ideas (UK),{{Citation |title=Sarah Chayes: Everybody Knows: Corruption in America (Bristol Festival of Ideas) | date=August 12, 2020 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFXnsylP_mQ |access-date=2023-10-24 |language=en}} and various others.

=Advisor to Joint Chiefs of Staff=

In 2010, Chayes became a special advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. In this capacity, she contributed to strategic US policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arab Spring.

=Carnegie Endowment for International Peace=

Sarah Chayes is a senior fellow in Carnegie's Democracy and Rule of Law program.{{Cite web|url=http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/712|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160702141826/http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/712|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 2, 2016|title = Sarah Chayes}} At Carnegie, Chayes has launched a corruption and security initiative, which analyzes the structure of kleptocratic governments around the world, the other risk factors with which public corruption is interacting in specific countries, the likelihood of a significant security event resulting, and potential approaches available to different local and international actors. She conducts significant field research on this topic, hosts speakers and workshops, both in the U.S. and in relevant countries, and speaks and writes frequently.

Books and other works

{{external media| float = right| video1 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?194410-1/punishment-virtue Presentation by Chayes on The Punishment of Virtue], C-SPAN| video2 = [https://www.c-span.org/video/?406808-5/open-phones-sarah-chayes Interview with Chayes on Thieves of State, April 9, 2016], C-SPAN}}

Chayes is the author of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban (2006){{cite book

| title=The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban

| date=August 2006

| isbn=978-0143112068| last1=Chayes

| first1=Sarah

| publisher=Penguin Books

}} and Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security (2014);{{cite book

| title=Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security

| publisher = Norton

| date=January 2014

| isbn=978-0393239461}} as well as On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake (2020).{{cite book

| title=On Corruption in America: and What Is at Stake

| publisher=Penguinrandomhouse

| date=August 2020

| isbn= 9780525654858}}

In January 2009, Chayes wrote Comprehensive Action Plan for Afghanistan, an analysis of the dilemma in Afghanistan ca. 2009 and a plan for its resolution.{{cite web

| url=http://www.sarahchayes.net/images/Afghanistan_policy_action_plan_0109.pdf

| title=Comprehensive Action Plan for Afghanistan

| date=January 2009

| archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20090219141308/http://sarahchayes.net/images/Afghanistan_policy_action_plan_0109.pdf

| archivedate=February 19, 2009

| url-status=dead

| accessdate=February 3, 2015}}

In a 2011 op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times, Chayes decried the "rampant public corruption" in Afghanistan, asserting that the country "is controlled by a structured, mafiaesque system, in which money flows upward via purchase of office, kickbacks or 'sweets' in return for permission to extract resources . . . and protection."{{Cite web

| url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2011-sep-25-la-oe-chayes-corruption-20110925-story.html

| title=Government by crime syndicate

| first=Sarah

| last=Chayes

| date=September 25, 2011

| work=Los Angeles Times

| access-date=February 3, 2015}}

In another 2012 op-ed piece published in the Los Angeles Times, Chayes argued that the controversial Innocence of Muslims video may not be protected under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment free speech guarantees. She contended that speech deliberately tailored in content and manner to provoke a violent reaction differs from speech that is merely offensive.{{Cite web

| url=https://www.latimes.com/opinion/la-xpm-2012-sep-18-la-oe-chayes-innocence-of-muslims-first-amendment-20120918-story.html

| title=Does 'Innocence of Muslims' meet the free-speech test?

| first=Sarah

| last=Chayes

| date=September 18, 2012

| work=Los Angeles Times

| access-date=February 3, 2015}}{{Cite web

| url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10000872396390444165804578006412406470412

| title=Vive la France

| first=James

| last=Taranto

| date=September 19, 2012

| work=The Wall Street Journal

| accessdate=February 3, 2015}}{{Cite web

| url=http://www.thewire.com/global/2012/09/really-bad-idea-world-tour-innocence-muslims-screenings/57011/

| title=A Really Bad Idea: A World Tour of 'Innocence of Muslims' Screenings

| first=John

| last=Hudson

| date=September 19, 2012

| publisher=The Atlantic Wire

| accessdate=February 3, 2015}}

During the October 6, 2021 episode of the BBC's Thinking Allowed (on post-occupation Afghanistan), Chayes was highly critical of the corrupt example of "democracy" set by the US for Afghans and others to follow.{{Cite web |title=Thinking Allowed - Afghanistan - BBC Sounds |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00108bj |access-date=2024-06-06 |website=www.bbc.co.uk |language=en-GB}}

References

External links

{{IMDb name|id=2480166}}
{{C-SPAN|1021348}}
{{cite web

| url=http://transom.org/2003/sarah-chayes/

| title=Sarah Chayes: Afghan Independent Radio

| date=January 10, 2003}}

{{cite web

| url=http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/467/2027986.html

| title=Special Report: Writer, Journalist, and AID Worker Sarah Chayes (RPCV Morocco) and her work in Afghanistan

| date=April 11, 2009}}

{{cite web

|url = http://www.andover.edu/About/NotableAlumni/LongList/Pages/1900s.aspx#1980s

|title = Notable Alumni: Long List

|publisher = Phillips Academy

|url-status = dead

|archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20140407080817/http://www.andover.edu/about/notablealumni/longlist/pages/1900s.aspx#1980s

|archivedate = April 7, 2014

}}

{{cite web

| url=http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2006/05/09/american_activist_finds_her_calling_in_afghan_hot_spot/

| title=American activist finds her calling in Afghan hot spot

| date=May 9, 2006

| first=Declan

| last=Walsh

| work=The Boston Globe}}

{{cite web

| url=https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/book-launchlive-webast-the-punishment-virtue-inside-afghanistan-after-the-taliban

| title=Book Launch/Live Webast—The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban

| date=September 7, 2006

| publisher=Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars}}

{{cite magazine

| url=http://bostonreview.net/chayes-days-of-lies-and-roses

| title=Days of Lies and Roses

| date=March 1, 2007

| author=Sarah Chayes

| work=Boston Review

| publisher=Boston Review}}

{{cite web|title=Sarah Chayes: Afghanistan Was an "Afterthought" for U.S. as Bush Was "Hellbent" on Invading Iraq|date=August 26, 2021|publisher=Democracy Now!|website=YouTube|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWKNMHE8NGs |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211214/xWKNMHE8NGs |archive-date=2021-12-14 |url-status=live}}{{cbignore}}
{{cite web|title=What Really Happened in Afghanistan: Marianne Williamson in conversation with author Sarah Chayes|date=September 2, 2021|website=YouTube|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rPjZBNBPrY |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211214/6rPjZBNBPrY |archive-date=2021-12-14 |url-status=live}}{{cbignore}}

=Listening=

[https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02222008/watch2.html Sarah Chayes interview] by Bill Moyers on PBS, February 22, 2008
[https://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/12192008/profile.html Sarah Chayes interview] on Bill Moyers' Journal, December 19, 2008
[https://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=02-04-2009&view=storyview Sarah Chayes interview] by Terry Gross on Fresh Air /WHYY/NPR, February 4, 2009
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100111004252/http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/6636 Sarah Chayes interview] by Charlie Rose, May 8, 2009
[http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/10/1355235 Sarah Chayes interview] from Democracy Now!, October 10, 2006
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWFMGv7-wyE Sarah Chayes interview] by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, June 29, 2009
[http://www.vpr.net/news_detail/86453/ Sarah Chayes interview] by Jane Lindholm, Vermont Public Radio, November 16, 2009
[http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/2010/04/12/segments/153249 Sarah Chayes interview] by Leonard Lopate on WNYC, April 12, 2010
[http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/expert-sees-risk-of-corruption-in-trump-foreign-government-deals-1078287427951 Sarah Chayes interview] by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, October 20, 2017