Tag "political science"

On January 22, Thomas Graham, former Special Assistant to the President of the United States on Russian and Eurasian affairs (2004-2007), spoke to faculty and students of the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs about the fundamentally competitive nature of US-Russia relations and prospects for cooperation between the two countries.

HSE researches have shown that the 2010 happiness level of citizens from Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and other Arab countries could provide a much more accurate forecast of the Arab Spring events than purely economic indices, such as GDP per capita and unemployment rate.

Researchers have long studied the motives that inspire people to join in collective action. Three factors have received particular attention: anger caused by apparent social injustice; belief in the efficacy of collective action; and politicised identity. New studies have recently prompted a team of scholars, including a HSE researcher, to incorporate two additional factors into the existing model: ideology and moral obligation.

Europe wants to live in a democracy. This is especially true for residents of countries of Northern Europe, but less so for those of former socialist countries, especially Russia. While almost everyone has a positive attitude towards democracy, people have different understandings of it. Alla Salmina studied the relationship between attitudes and understandings of it using the data of 28 countries that participated in the European Social Survey (ESS). 

‘We tried to give them a bright future.’ These are the words of engineers, construction workers, geologists, doctors and other specialists from the former Soviet republic regarding the years they spent in Mongolia. Those Soviet-era specialists are still united by the memory of trying to build something on such a grand scale and then seeing the whole project collapse. More than 100 members of that community agreed to be interviewed in-depth by political scientist Alexei Mikhalev. Here, he shares information from their collective memory with IQ.HSE.

‘State capacity’ refers to a state’s ability to make and effectively implement decisions in domestic and foreign policy. In a study, HSE University political scientists evaluated the state capacity of 142 countries. Based on their findings, the researchers created and trialed a state capacity index, identified eight models of state capacity, and compiled a general international ranking.

David Szakonyi, Assistant Professor of Political Science from George Washington University, recently attended the 8th Annual Conference of the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development (ICSID) held at HSE University in Moscow this June. He has spoken to HSE News service about the conference and his cooperation with HSE University.

While much of the focus on politics and global affairs over the past several decades has been on democratization, the most striking thing about this period has been the survival and spread of authoritarian regimes, argues Graeme Gill, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. Professor Gill is one of the presenters at the upcoming XX April International Academic Conference on Economic and Social Development, scheduled this year for April 9-12 at the Higher School of Economics.

The article ‘Regime Type and Political Destabilization in a Cross-National Perspective: A Re-Analysis’ by Andrey Korotayev, Professor at HSE School of Political Science, co-authored by Julia Zinkina (HSE), Elena Slinko (Rossiya Segodnya) and Stanislav Bilyuga (MSU) was published in the journal ‘Cross-Cultural Research’.

Navid Hassanpour, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences (School of Political Science) at the Higher School of Economics, is the author of ‘Leading from the Periphery and Network Collective Action’ published by Cambridge University Press in December 2016. He recently spoke with the HSE News Service about his current course at HSE, expansion of the Master’s programme in Applied Political Science, and his plans for upcoming research.