Fellows Research

My research resulted in findings that were, I believe, largely indicative of a situation that had existed in Georgia since the end of the Abkhazian War in 1993 and up to August of 2008.

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The Russian Language in Georgia: A Case Study of the Social Pressures Facing Russian-Speaking Minorities in the CIS (30KB.pdf)

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How is the Holocaust remembered in Russian popular culture? In particular, what do Russian films about the Holocaust reveal about Russian-Jewish identity? How do these films reflect and shape the understanding of the Holocaust in Russia?

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The Holocaust in Soviet and Russian Cinema (144KB.pdf)

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This project investigates the role of educational actors in Albanian education reform and democratization.

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Localizing Global Subjects: A Study of Educational Actors in the Process of Albanian Democratization (285KB.pdf)

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My research which involved interviewing key negotiators, led me to conclude that the failure of Kosovo negotiations was a result of missed opportunities on the part of negotiators, which could partly be explained through their unwillingness to cooperate but even further by their inability to take advantage when such opportunities arose.

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Negotiating Kosovo: The Role of the International Community as a Mediator (32KB.pdf)

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This research focuses solely on student led mobilization campaigns and their ability to channel expressions of public opinion.

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Political Action from Below: Youth Participation in Ukraine's Orange Revolution (124KB.pdf)

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This research project concerns nomadic-sedentary interactions between Early Iron Age (1000- 500 B.C.) nomadic steppe groups (the Cimmerians and Scythians) with sedentary societies in the Ukrainian forest-steppe (the Chornolisska culture) and its impact on the development of Scythian society.

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Worlds Connected: Cimmerian-Scythian Nomadic-Sedentary Interaction in the Ukrainian Iron Age (24KB.pdf)

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The purpose of my research was to study the nature of civil society in Transnistria through its participants.

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Organization in Isolation: A Study of Participation in Transdnistrian Civil Society (31KB.pdf)

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This project set out to explore sovereignty and the state in Moldova by investigating the tension between sovereignty as the locus of the international state system and its local practice.

Ethnographically, this project explored how social and economic practices - licit and illicit economic activities - traverse localized sovereign networks operating in this region. During my research, I investigated how this social and economic "distinctiveness‟ (more of a rhetorical than an objective difference) was reflected in political life in Transnistria.

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Sovereignty and Statehood in the Republic of Moldova (256KB.pdf)

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I propose a theoretical framework that illuminates the conditions that limit the seat-maximizing behavior of incumbents and test it through a comparative analysis of three cases of electoral reform in Bulgaria.

Building on Tsebelis‟ (1991) notion of “nested games,” I distinguish theoretically between short-term electoral threat (losing the upcoming election under existing regime) and extraparliamentary threat to the regime (the possibility of major reform of the political system and threat to the dominant role of the incumbent).

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Mechanisms of Electoral System Choice: Bulgaria 1990, 1991, 2009 (253KB.pdf)

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Does Islam promote or hinder democracy in the Muslim world?

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Islam & Democracy: Can Islamic Institutions Promote Civil Liberties & Diminish Radicalism in the Muslim Central Asia? (265kb)

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