Dr Paul Chaisty awarded John Fell grant to study Ukraine and Russia

Paul Chaisty has been awarded funding from the Universitys John Fell OUP Research Fund to support research on Nationalism and State-Building at a Crucial Turning Point: Democracy, Authoritarianism and Political Mobilisation in Ukraine and Russia.

Together with Stephen Whitefield and Tomila Lankina (London School of Economics), he will investigate how political and national identities and preferences are changing in Russia and Ukraine, with particular emphasis on Ukraine's varied regions including Crimea. In particular, the project will consider how national identities and mobilised political activity connect with mass and elite support for democratic or authoritarian government (and their institutional forms) and with attitudes towards European integration. The research questions will be addressed through national surveys of citizens in both countries, supplemented by content analysis of media sources to map shifting elite framing of nationalism and states.

This project will run from July 2014 to December 2015.