Stanford University

International Dimension of Autocratization in post-Soviet Eurasia

Thursday, May 19, 2016
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (Pacific)
Speaker: 
  • Anastassia V. Obydenkova

**This event is co-sponsored with CREES**

Abstract:

Twenty five years have passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union (the USSR), when the fifteen new independent states of Eurasia started the process of regime transition and state- and nation-building. All of the former Soviet republics have the same departure point – the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Twenty five years later, in 2016, there is an enormous variation in the outcomes of regime transition across post-Soviet Eurasia: from autocracies (e.g., Belarus) to democracies (Baltic states). Thus, this experience of post-Soviet Eurasian states requires development of new theoretical approaches that would allow for better understanding of rapid dynamics in this part of the world and of the phenomenon of external dimension of regime transition in general.

 

Speaker Bio:

anastasia
Anastassia V. Obydenkova is a regional fellow at Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies Harvard University. From September 2016, she joins the Institute for Regional and International Affairs of the Princeton University. Dr. Obydenkova is also a senior researcher at Higher School of Economics (Moscow); previously she was a senior researcher (Ramon-y-Cajal) of the Ministry of Innovation and Science of Spain, a research fellow at the London School of Economics, and a Fox Fellow at Yale University.

Anastassia V. Obydenkova holds a Ph.D. in Political and Social Science from the European University Institute (2006, Florence, Italy), M.A. from Central European University (Budapest, Hungary), and a Summa Cum Laude Diploma in Political Science and International Relations from Moscow Lomonosov State University; Diploma Cum Laude in Foreign Languages from the Department of Foreign Languages of the Moscow State University. Her main research interests are autocracies, democratization and regime transition, federalism, decentralization, sub-national political regimes, international organizations, and area studies (former Soviet States of Eurasia).

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