Paul Chaisty is Professor of Russian and East European Politics and Head of the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA). He joined the Department of Politics and International Relations and OSGA in 2005, following a three-year appointment in Politics at Pembroke College, Oxford. His research interests cover legislative, party and interest group politics in post-communist Russia; political attitudes in Russia; nationalism in Russia and Ukraine; and comparative presidentialism. His current book project with Stephen Whitefield is entitled How Russians Understand the New Russia: Consolidation and Contestation.
Media
Contemporary Russian Politics
Teaching
- The Politics of Russia and the Former Soviet Union;
- Comparative Government;
- Comparative Presidentialism;
- The Political Sociology of Post-Communist Societies
Publications
Books
(2025) (with Stephen Whitefield) How Russians Understand the New Russia: Consolidation and Contestation. Princeton University Press. Pre-order a copy via How Russians Understand the New Russia | Princeton University Press
(2018) (with Nicholas Cheeseman and Timothy Power) Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective: Minority Presidents in Multiparty Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
(2006) Legislative Politics and Economic Power in Russia. Basingstoke: Palgrave
(1999) (with Jeffrey Gleisner) Rossiiskaya Gosudarstvennaya Duma: struktura, deyatel'nost' i evolyutsiya v period 1993-1998 godov. Moskva: Tsentr konstitutsionnykh issledovanii, MOHF.
Articles
(2024) (with Timothy J. Power), 'Gamson Going Global? Cabinet Proportionality in Comparative Perspective', European Political Science Review (online first)
(2023) (with Stephen Whitefield), 'Building Voting Coalitions in Electoral Authoritarian Regimes: A Case Study of the 2020 Constitutional Reform in Russia', Post-Soviet Affairs, 39:4, 273-290
(2023) (with Timothy J. Power), 'Does Power Always Flow to the Executive? Interbranch Oscillations in Legislative Authority, 1976–2014'. Government and Opposition, 58: 1, 61-83
(2022) (with Christopher J. Gerry and Stephen Whitefield (2021), 'The Buck Stops Elsewhere: Authoritarian Resilience and the Politics of Responsibility for COVID-19 in Russia', Post-Soviet Affairs, 38:5, 366-385
(2022) (with Stephen Whitefield), 'How Challenger Parties Can Win Big with Frozen Cleavages: Explaining the Landslide Victory of the Servant of the People Party in the 2019 Ukrainian Parliamentary Elections', Party Politics, 28:1, 115–126
(2019) (with Stephen Whitefield) 'The Political Implications of Popular Support for Presidential Term Limits in Russia', Post-Soviet Affairs, 35:4, 323-337
(2019) (with Timothy J. Power) 'Flying solo: Explaining Single-Party Cabinets under Minority Presidentialism', European Journal of Political Research, 58:1, 163-183
(2018) (with Stephen Whitefield) 'Critical Election or Frozen Cleavages? How Voters Chose Parties in the 2014 Ukrainian Parliamentary Election', Electoral Studies, 56, 158-169
(2017) (with Svitlana Chernykh) ‘How Do Minority Presidents Manage Multiparty Coalitions? Identifying and Analyzing the Payoffs to Coalition Parties in Presidential Systems’, Political Research Quarterly, 70:4, 762–777
(2017) (with Stephen Whitefield) ‘Citizens’ Attitudes towards Institutional Change in Contexts of Political Turbulence: Support for Regional Decentralisation in Ukraine’, Political Studies, 65:4, 824–843
(2017) (with Stephen Whitefield), ‘Understandings of the Nation in Russian Public Opinion: Survey Evidence from Putin’s Russia (2001–2014)', Russian Politics, 2:2, 123-154
(2015) (with Svitlana Chernykh), ‘Coalitional Presidentialism and Legislative Control in Post-Soviet Ukraine’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 31:3, 177-200
(2015) (with Stephen Whitefield), ‘Support for Environmental Policies: Are Post-Communist Societies (Still) Different ?’, Environmental Politics, 24:4, 598-616
(2014) (with Nicholas Cheeseman and Timothy Power), ‘Rethinking the ‘Presidentialism Debate’: Conceptualizing Coalitional Politics in Cross-Regional Perspective’, Democratization, 21:1, 72-94
(2014) ‘Presidential Dynamics and Legislative Velocity in Russia, 1994–2007’, East European Politics, 30:4, 588-601
(2013) (with Stephen Whitefield) ‘Forward to Democracy or Back to Authoritarianism? The Attitudinal Bases of Mass Support for the Russian Election Protests of 2011–2012’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 29:5, 387-403
(2013) ‘The Preponderance and Effects of Sectoral Ties in the State Duma’, Europe-Asia Studies, 65:4, 717-736
(2013) 'The Impact of Party Primaries and the All-Russian Popular Front on the Composition of United Russia's Majority in the Sixth Duma', Russian Analytical Digest', No. 127. 8-12
(2012) (with Stephen Whitefield) ‘The Effects of the Global Financial Crisis on Russian Political Attitudes’, Post-Soviet Affairs, 28:2, 187-208
(2012) ‘Members and Leaders in Russian Party Organisations’, East European Politics, 28:3, 283-297
(2008) 'The Legislative Effects of Presidential Partisan Powers in Post-Communist Russia', Government and Opposition, 43:3, 424-453
(2007) 'The Influence of Sectoral and Regional Economic Interests on Russian Legislative Behaviour: The Case of State Duma Voting on Production Sharing Agreements Legislation', Post-Soviet Affairs, 23:4, 302-328
(2006) 'Za i protiv mazhoritarizma dlya rossiiskikh zakonodatelei', Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, 4:57
(2005) 'Party Cohesion and Policy-Making in Russia', Party Politics, 11:3, 299–318
(2003) 'Defending the Institutional Status Quo: Communist Leadership of the Second Russian State Duma, 1996-1999', Legislative Studies Quarterly, 28:1, 5-28
(2002) (with Petra Schleiter) '"Productive but not Valued": The Russian State Duma, 1994-2001', Europe-Asia Studies, 54:5, 701-724
(1997) 'Democratic Consolidation and Parliamentary Reform in Russia, 1990-93', The Journal of Legislative Studies, 3:4, 44-69
Book chapters
(2023) (with Ben Noble) ‘The Federal Assembly – more than just a “rubber stamp”?, in Graeme Gill (eds.) Handbook of Russian Politics and Society, (Abingdon: Routledge)
(2020) (with Nic Cheeseman and Timothy J. Power), ‘Inside the Coordination Paradigm: New Perspectives on Minority Presidents and Coalition Management’, in Rudy B. Andeweg et al (eds.) Oxford Handbook of Political Executives (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
(2019) 'The Uses and Abuses of Presidential Term Limits in Russian Politics’, in Alex Baturo and Robert Elgie (eds.) The Politics of Presidential Term Limits (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
(2015) (with Stephen Whitefield), ‘Putin’s Nationalism Problem’, in Richard Sakwa and Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska (ed.) Ukraine and Russia: People, Politics, Propaganda and Perspectives
(2012) ‘The Descriptive and Substantive Representation of Ethnic Minorities in the Russian Parliament‘, in Oleh Protysk and Benedikt Harzl (eds.) Managing Ethnic Diversity in Russia (Abingdon: Routledge
(2012) 'Business Representation in the State Duma', in Lena Jonson and Stephen White, eds.) Waiting For Reform Under Putin and Medvedev (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan)
(2011) 'The Federal Assembly and the Power Vertical'. in Graeme Gill and James Young (eds.) Handbook of Russian Politics and Society (Abingdon: Routledge)
(2009) 'Vozdeistvie partiinykh rychagov vlasti prezidenta na zakonodatel'nyi protsess v postkommunisticheskoi Rossii', in E. Meleshkina and G. Mikhaleva (ed.) Politicheskaya konkurentsiya i partii v gosudarstvakh postsovetskogo prostranstva (Moscow: INION RAN)
(2005) 'Majority Control and Executive Dominance: Parliament-President Relations in Putin's Russia', in Alex Pravda (ed.), Leading Russia: Putin in Perspective (Oxford: Oxford University Press) [reprinted in (2013) Joel Ostrow (ed.) Politics in Russia: A Reader]
(2001) 'Legislative Politics in Russia', in Archie Brown (ed.), Contemporary Russian Politics: A Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press)
(2000) (with Jeffrey Gleisner) 'The Consolidation of Russian Parliamentarianism: The State Duma 1993-1998', in Neil Robinson (ed.), Institutions and Change in Russian Politics (London: Macmillan)
Other Publications
(2015) (with Nicholas Cheeseman and Timothy Power), ‘The Coalitional Presidentialism Project: How MPs Understand Coalitional Politics in Presidential System’, Research Report (University of Oxford: Department for Politics and International Relations).
(2015) (with Nicholas Cheeseman and Timothy Power), ‘Prospects for a New Coalition in Ukraine’, Policy Brief (University of Oxford: Department for Politics and International Relations).
(2015) (with Nicholas Cheeseman and Timothy Power), ‘The Prospects for President Rousseff's Coalition Government in Brazil’, Policy Brief (University of Oxford: Department for Politics and International Relations).
(1996) ‘The Ruling Organs of the Russian Supreme Soviet: 1990-1993’, Working Papers on Democratization (University of Leeds: Centre for Democratization Studies)
