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.
Policy memos
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RECOMMENDED
Understanding Vaccine Hesitancy in the Context of COVID-19: The Role of Trust and Confidence in a Seventeen-Country Survey
(IJPH) With the realization that a vaccine to SARS-CoV-2 is essential to gain control of the pandemic, many have expressed legitimate concerns about vaccine hesitancy. Vaccine hesitancy, defined as the delayed acceptance of or refusal to accept an available vaccine, is a global problem that is on the rise. Just a year before the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, vaccine hesitancy was considered one of…
Will Russia Put China’s Arctic Ambitions on Ice?
(China’s Resource Risks) Despite its enthusiasm, China’s efforts to become a key voice in Arctic affairs have been met with skepticism, even alarm by Arctic states, and few of its investment initiatives have borne fruit. Are China’s fortunes turning with strategic partner Russia assuming on May 20, 2021 the role of chair of the Arctic Council, a two-year rotating…
Revealing Schemes: The Politics of Conspiracy in Russia and the Post-Soviet Region (NEW BOOK)
(Oxford University Press) Conspiracy theories have come to play an increasingly prominent role in political systems around the world. In Revealing Schemes, Scott Radnitz moves beyond psychological explanations for why people believe conspiracy theories to explore the politics surrounding them, placing two questions at the center of his account: What leads regimes to promote conspiracy…
US-Ukraine relations under Joe Biden: security and domestic reforms as mutually reinforcing pillars
(ZLM) The recent visit of the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Kyiv has generated some interest in Ukraine and beyond. This face-to-face meeting was a good opportunity for the United States and Ukraine to send and receive messages and signals in the most direct way. The agenda for the bilateral relations had been set prior to the meeting and yet the symbolism of…
Expanding the Scope for Statecraft in U.S. Russia Policy
(War on the Rocks) The Biden administration has its sights set on a June summit with Russia. Given the new lows plowed in the bilateral relationship — so low that both countries’ ambassadors have returned home for consultations — talks at the presidential level are an important channel of communication. While the summit is unlikely to yield a fiasco like the infamous Trump-Putin press…
Stuck between underinvestment, government authoritarianism and corruption: The healthcare system in Tajikistan and the risks for the population
(FPC) As the COVID-19 virus spread in Eurasia in early 2020, Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon and his government chose to deny the crisis for more than four months, then acknowledged on April 30th only a very limited presence of the virus, according to the official data, of 15 cases. This low figure was at odds with the numerous local testimonies about people with symptoms of COVID-19…
Can European Brakes Slow Down Russia’s Drive in Secessionist Conflicts?
(BEAR Network) This policy memo explores the past experiences of the European Union in dealing with Russia’soverwhelming presence in secessionist conflicts. The EU has sought economic and political stability – it has addressed the problems of clientelism, isolation, and dependency, and is supposedly eager to investin reform-induced conflict management which ideally could show that there is…
Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies: Ambassadorial Docuseries
(Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies) The Ambassadorial Series is a one-of-a-kind docuseries featuring in-depth interviews with eight of the living former U.S. ambassadors to Russia and the Soviet Union. Jack F. Matlock | Ambassador to the Soviet Union, 1987-1991 Thomas R. Pickering | Ambassador to the Russian Federation, 1993-1996 Alexander Vershbow | U.S. Ambassador to…
Listen to our podcast
- 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.
- In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Gorbachev about the dynamic music scene in contemporary Russia, and how free Russian musicians are to make political statements.
- In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Anton Tabakh about rising food prices in Russia, and what they might mean for Russia's current and future stability.
