OUR MISSION
The Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia) is a network of over 125 academics, mainly from North America and post-Soviet Eurasia, advancing new approaches to research on security, politics, economics, and society in Russia and Eurasia. Its core missions are to connect scholarship to policy on and in Russia and Eurasia and to foster a community, especially of mid-career and rising scholars, committed to developing policy-relevant and collaborative research.
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RECOMMENDED
Soft Power in Central Asia: The Politics of Influence and Seduction
(CAP) Central Asia often evokes images of imperial power rivalry dating back to the 19th century. Yet as the region’s international politics becomes more complex in the age of globalization, the need for new ways of looking at its many actors is more pressing than ever. Today even the traditional great powers rely increasingly on subtle forms of influence to augment their military might…
Beyond “hybrid warfare”: a digital exploration of Russia’s entrepreneurs of influence
(Post-Soviet Affairs) This article argues that to capture Russia’s influence abroad, one needs to comprehend the country’s “gray diplomacy” as a neoliberal realm open to individual initiatives. We define “entrepreneurs of influence” as people who invest their own money or social capital to build influence abroad in hopes of being rewarded by the Kremlin. We test this notion by looking at…
Afghanistan, Russia, and the CSTO
(PONARS Eurasia Commentary) Will Russia promote the unproved Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in the shadow of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)? On July 7, 2021, Tajikistan requested that its fellow CSTO members fully implement the 2013 decision on “Assistance to the Republic of Tajikistan in Strengthening the Tajik-Afghan Border.” As the complete withdrawal of the…
COVID-19 and Azerbaijan: Is the System Resilient Enough to Withstand the Perfect Storm?
(Problems of Post-Communism) Abstract: COVID-19 has significantly impacted many countries of post-Soviet Eurasia, affecting both political and economic realms. Azerbaijan is not alone in suffering from the pandemic and paying a high price. All the problems the country inherited are being exacerbated, forcing the government to seek different modes of development and the managing of…
Central Peripheries: Nationhood in Central Asia
(UCL Press) Central Peripheries explores post-Soviet Central Asia through the prism of nation-building. Although relative latecomers on the international scene, the Central Asian states see themselves as globalized, and yet in spite of – or perhaps precisely because of – this, they hold a very classical vision of the nation-state, rejecting the abolition of boundaries and the theory…
Roundtable on Gulnaz Sharafutdinova’s The Red Mirror
(Post-Soviet Affairs) In this roundtable, we bring together a distinguished groups of academics to discuss Gulnaz Sharafutdinova’s excellent new book, The Red Mirror: Putin’s Leadership and Russia’s Insecure Identity (Sharafutdinova 2020). Sharafutdinova addressess two central issues of Russian politics: the source of popular support for President Vladimir Putin and the…
Russia’s African Toolkit: Digital Influence and Entrepreneurs of Influence
(Orbis) Today, Russian influence on the African continent is still anecdotic compared to the People’s Republic of China, the United States, and former colonial powers, such as France. Yet, Moscow has committed to reasserting itself as an alternative pole of influence to China and Western countries in the eyes of some African elites. This article analyzes two key components of…
The U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty
(IMEMO) The article analyzes the dynamics, causes and implications of the collapse of the Open Skies Treaty in the broader context of gradual dismantlement of the network of arms control and confidence building regimes created at the end of the Cold War. The central focus is on the explanation of the declining U.S. support for the treaty since the 2010s and the eventual withdrawal…
Listen to our podcast
- In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
- In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
- In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
- In today's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Olga Malinova about the myth of the "wild nineties" and the political actors involved in its construction.
