DANYLIW RESEARCH SEMINAR ON CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE

As Ukraine built a democratic nation-state, Russia refused to accept it and came to see it as an “anti-Russia” project. Putin went to war to force Ukraine back into the fold of the “Russian world.” Ukraine resisted, determined to pursue European integration as a sovereign state. These irreconcilable goals, rather than geopolitical wrangling between Russia and the West over NATO expansion, are essential to understanding Russia’s war on Ukraine.

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Maria Popova (PhD, Harvard) is Jean Monnet Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University in Montreal. She is the author of Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies (Cambridge University Press, 2012). Her work explores the intersection of politics and law in the region, specifically the rule of law, judicial reform, political corruption, populist parties, and legal repression of dissent. 2014-2021. 

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Oxana Shevel (PhD, Harvard) is an Associate Professor of comparative politic at Department of Political Science at Tufts University. She is the author of Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2011). Her research focuses on identity politics, citizenship, memory politics, church-state relations, and democratization in Ukraine.