Fellows Research

My research was a contrastive study of local and international organizations that worked with displaced Muslims from the central Balkans in the last half of the 20th century. Return or integration of displaced people is basic to growth of stable democratic systems.

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Civil Society Associations of Displaced Muslims from Kosova & Macedonia vs. International Organizations in Kosova (345KB.pdf)

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My research focused on the intersections of musical culture with political and economic campaigns in two populations in the Ukrainian borderlands: the Hutsuls of the Western Ukrainian Carpathian mountains and the Tatars of Crimea.

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Civilizing Wildness: Musical Practices as Political and Economic Resources in Contemporary Ukraine (368KB.pdf)

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My dissertation explains why dominant parties emerge when and where they do.

The key to understanding the emergence of dominant parties lies in the incentives of individual elite actors to affiliate with the party. Where many previous scholars have sought to explain the endurance and institutional makeup of authoritarian regimes with reference to the preferences of the ruler, my approach shifts the locus of analysis to individual elites.

Download the pdf at the top of this page for the full brief.

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Parties of Power and Commitment Problems: United Russia as a Dominant Party (36KB.pdf)

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A unique category of hereditary chieftains, called manaps, emerged among the northern Kirghiz (Central Asian Turkic mountain nomads) in the early nineteenth century and dominated Kirghiz politics and society until the Stalin era.

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History of the Northern Kirkhiz Chieftans, 1800-1935 (30KB.pdf)

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My project investigates the development of a positive relationship between displaced persons and the resurgence of nationalist parties in Serbia, and how this phenomenon challenges the state's project of European integration.

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Displaced Persons, the Resurgence of Nationalism, and Challenge to European Integration in Serbia (181KB.pdf)

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Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Kazakhstan has skyrocketed since the turn of the century. This is largely due to Chinese government policies, both financial incentives for Chinese firms as well as loans for the Kazakh government, which push state owned enterprises (SOEs) to invest there.

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China's Support for Investment in Kazakhstan: Good Neighbor, Good Economics or Good Geopolitics? (346KB.pdf)

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The project concerned whether and how ethnic Uzbeks in a Central Asian city are articulating their communal aspirations using the language or ideas of Islam and just society.

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Islam, Virtuous Society, and Societal Problems in Post-Soviet Central Asia (101KB.pdf)

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My ethnographic research among emergent activist groups demanding more governmental accountability in Sarajevo, the capitol of Bosnia-Herzegovina, suggests that citizens mobilize the newly available discourses on democratization, including the languages of representation, participation, transparency etc., but simultaneously assign them with specific local meanings and expectations.

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Think Future: Constructing Hope and Anti-Nationalism in Bosnia-Herzegovina (127KB.pdf)

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The research conducted in Ukraine focused on finding which domestic sources and in what way influence Ukraine‟s foreign policy, taking Ukraine‟s policy towards Russia as an example. During the research I was better able to indentify the domestic factors involved in foreign policy making, and thus better define the concept of "domestic sources‟.

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Domestic Sources of Ukraine's Policy towards Russia (1991-2004) (136KB.pdf)

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My research focused on the transformation of the Bulgarian wine industry and its cultural implication to understand agricultural developments and transnational governance.

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Globalization and Standardization: Revival of the Bulgarian Wine Industry (397KB.pdf)

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