Lead Analyst: Tomila Lankina

To study why the dynamics of popular mobilization and civic activism vary across space and time, we need to understand how they may be conditioned by longer-term structural and political legacies and historical trajectories of specific states and sub-national regions of the former Soviet Union. The project therefore also investigates the broader historical influences on democracy, authoritarianism, and geopolitical and normative orientations in the post-Soviet space; this research is pursued comparatively, in that it draws on parallels from other national contexts. The data on social mobilization and state responses to popular demands are leveraged here to help ascertain the longer-term drivers of the persistence of authoritarianism, or of democratic resilience. Specifically, the legacies of Imperial Russian rule in the reproduction of territorial variations in democracy are explored, as are those related to the Soviet communist experiment.

Recent Publications and Working Papers

 

• Lankina, Tomila V. and Alexander Libman (2017). “The Jekyll and Hyde of Soviet Policies: Endogenous Modernization, the Gulag and Post-Communist Support for Democracy.” Paper prepared for presentation at the Annual National Convention of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco 31 August – 3 September 2017
• Lankina, Tomila V. and Kohei Watanabe (2016). “‘Russian Spring’ or ‘Spring betrayal’? The Media as a Mirror of Putin’s Evolving Strategy in Ukraine.” Europe-Asia Studies, ISSN 0966-8136. Forthcoming. Click here for PDF of the working paper.
• Lankina, Tomila V. 2016. “It’s Not all Negative: Russian Media’s Flexible Coverage of Protest as a Regime Survival Strategy.” No. 449. PONARS Eurasia, Washington, DC, USA.
• Lankina, Tomila, Alexander Libman, and Anastassia Obydenkova. 2016. “Appropriation and Subversion: Pre-communist Literacy, Communist Party Saturation, and Post-Communist Democratic Outcomes.” World Politics68 (2): 229-274. Paper was a “runner-up” for the Women’s Prize of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) in 2018.
• Lankina, Tomila, Alexander Libman, and Anastassia Obydenkova. 2016. “Authoritarian and Democratic Diffusion in Post-Communist Regions” Comparative Political Studies49 (12):1599-1629.
• Skovoroda, Rodion and Lankina, Tomila V. 2016. “Fabricating Votes for Putin: New Tests of Fraud and Electoral Manipulations from Russia.” Post-Soviet Affairs. ISSN 1060-586X
• Lankina, Tomila V. and Skovoroda, Rodion. 2016. “Regional Protest and Electoral Fraud: Evidence from Analysis of New Data on Russian Protest.” East European Politics. ISSN 2159-9173
• Lankina, Tomila. 2016.) “Boris Nemtsov and the Reproduction of the Regional Intelligentsia.” Demokratizatsiya 24 (1): 45-68.
• Lankina, Tomila. 2014. “Trends in Within-Legacy and Cross-Legacy Analysis of Democracy and Development.” In Colonialism and Democratization, eds. Matthew D. Fails and Jonathan Krieckhaus: The American Political Science Association Comparative Democratization Newsletter. 7-11.
• Lankina, Tomila, and Lullit Getachew. 2013. “Competitive Religious Entrepreneurs: Christian Missionaries and Female Education in Colonial and Post-colonial India.” British Journal of Political Science 43 (1): 103-131.
• Lankina, Tomila, and Lullit Getachew. 2012. “Mission or Empire, Word or Sword?: The Human Capital Legacy in Postcolonial Democratic Development.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (2): 465-483.
• Replication data for “Mission or Empire, Word or Sword? The Human Capital Legacy in Post-Colonial Democratic Development.”
• Lankina, Tomila. 2012. “Sisyphean Endeavor or Worthwhile Undertaking? Transcending Within-Nation, Within Region Sub-national Democracy Analysis.” In Subnational Comparative Research on Democracy: Taking Stock and Looking Forward, eds. Eduardo Moncada and Richard Snyder: The American Political Science Association Comparative Democratization Newsletter. 14-18
• Lankina, Tomila. 2012. “Unbroken Links? From Imperial Human Capital to Post-Communist Modernisation.” Europe-Asia Studies 64 (4): 623-643.