Forschung im Fokus

Auf dieser Seite porträtieren wir Mitglieder und ausgewählte Gäste des CEES, die ihre Forschung im Rahmen von CEES-Veranstaltungen und Workshops präsentiert und/oder CEES-Lehrveranstaltungen durchgeführt haben.

Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky is a Head of the BA Honors Track in Strategy and Decision Making at the School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at the IDC Herzliya University, Israel. His research interests include international security, cultural approach to IR, modern military thought, and American, Russian and Israeli national security policy.

He has published on these topics in Foreign Affairs, Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, Intelligence and National Security, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Journal of Cold War History. His books Operation Kavkaz and The Culture of Military Innovation (Stanford UP) earned the annual (2006 and 2012) prizes for the best academic works on Israeli security. His recent book Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy (Stanford UP, 2019) is about religion, politics and strategy in Russia.

Dmitry Adamsky will give a talk on "Russian Nuclear Orthodoxy: Religion, Politics and Strategy in Contemporary Russia" in the framework of a CEES-workshop  on 23 October 2019.

Brian Carlson (PhD, John Hopkins University) is an associated member of the Center for Eastern European Studies (CEES) at the University of Zurich. He holds a Transatlantic Post-Doctoral Fellowship in International Relations and Security (TAPIR). He was a reaseach fellow at the Center for Security Studies (ETH Zurich) in 2017/18 and is currently a reaserch fellow at the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin.

His research concerns Russia-China relations, including Russian arms sales to China, Russia-China relations in Central Asia, and other related topics. During the summer of 2017, he was a RAND Summer Associate in Washington, D.C. He speaks both Russian and Chinese and has lived in both countries. He has published articles in Survival and other journals. He plans to defend his dissertation at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C.

Brian Carlson presented his research paper titled "Don’t Wake Up Evil While It’s Quiet: Russia’s Response to China’s Growing Influence in Central Asia" at a CEES-workshop on 21 March 2018.

Dr. Philipp Casula arbeitet seit Herbst 2018 als Fachreferent in der Universitätsbibliothek der Universität Bern. Davor war er wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am Historischen Seminar der Universität Zürich (SNF-Stipendiat) und ist assoziiertes Mitglied des Center for Eastern European Studies (CEES) der Universität Zürich. Er promovierte zum innenpolitischen Diskurs unter Putin aus der Perspektive von Populismus und Hegemonie an der Universität Basel.

Philipp Casula forscht zu Themen der neueren sowjetischen Geschichte und befasst sich mit Fragen der aktuellen russischen Politik. In seinem laufenden Vorhaben, «Experten, Expertise und Wissensnetzwerke: Der sowjetische Blick auf den Grossraum Naher Osten» analysiert er die Entwicklung der Beziehungen Moskaus zum Nahen Osten. Dabei differenziert er zwischen kulturellen und politischen Beziehungen, die die Grundlage für die heutige Aussenpolitik bilden. Im Nahen Osten erarbeitete sich Moskau nicht nur oft unsichere aber pragmatische Partner im Ost-West-Konflikt, sondern fand dort auch eine Projektionsfläche für eigene Sehnsüchte und Idealvorstellungen. Der Nahe Osten wurde zu einem Sehnsuchtsort. Zu seinen Publikationen zählen «Russia’s Foreign Policy from the Crimean Crisis to the Middle East: great power gamble or biopolitics?», in Rising Powers Quarterly (2017), «Between Ethnocide and Genocide: Violence and Otherness in the Afghanistan and Chechnya Wars» in Nationalities Papers (2015) sowie «Sovereign Democracy, Populism and Depoliticization in Russia», in Problems of Post-Communism (2013).

Philipp Casula hat im Frühjahrsemester 2018 eine vom CEES finanzierte  Lehrveranstaltung zum Thema "Russische Aussenpolitik seit 1991: Sicherheit, Identität und national Interessen" durchgeführt.

Am 28. Februar 2018 präsentierte Philipp Casual zudem seine Forschung im Rahmen eines CEES-Workshops vor. Er referierte zum Thema Populism or Nationalism? Russia after the 2014 Annexation of Crimea".

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Cécile Druey is a senior researcher at the Institute of History, University of Berne. She holds a PhD and a Master in International History and Politics from the Graduate Institute on International and Development Studies in Geneva, as well as a Master in Russian language and literature, and in Islamic Studies from the Universities of Fribourg and Bern (Switzerland).

Beyond her assignment as a senior researcher at the University of Bern (Historical Institute, Section of Eastern European History), she has also broad experience as a practitioner peacebuilding, which she gained mainly during her positions at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA) and the Swiss Peace Foundation swisspeace. Her main academic interests are the conflicts and peacebuilding approaches in the post-Soviet space, with a special focus on Ukraine and the Caucasus.

Cécile Druey will present her research on "Official and Alternative Memory Networks in Post-Soviet Chechnya" in the framework of a  CEES-workshop on 18 December 2019.

Dr. des. Eliza Isabaeva is a scientific collaborator with the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies at the University of Zurich. She obtained her PhD in social anthropology from the University of Zurich in 2017, and her MA from the University of Bern in 2009.

Her research focuses on migration, urban change, and social transformation, and the anthropology of the states with a focus on post-Soviet Central Asia, and Kyrgyzstan in particular. Her current project is on "Informal Housing and Property Rights in Eastern Europe and Central Asia."In the spring semester of 2019, Eliza Isabaeva has thought the CEES-sponsored BA-Seminar titled "Post-Soviet Central Asia: History, Politics, Society".

Viacheslav Nekrasov is a PhD Candidate in History and a Research Fellow at the Institute of  World History of the Russian Academy of Science Assistant. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Surgut State Pedagogical University.

His research interests cover controversial issues of the economic history of the Soviet Union during the “silver age” of its development,  with a focus on the failed Soviet modernization projects from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s. He is especially concerned with economic reform projects under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, Soviet industrial policy, rivalry of interest groups in the Soviet economy and energy policy during the Cold War. He is the author of a number of works on the Soviet oil and gas industry, including, "Decision-Making in the Soviet Energy Sector in Post-Stalinist Times: The Failure of Khrushchev's Economic Modernization Strategy", in Jeronim Perović (ed.), Cold War Energy: A Transnational History of Soviet Oil and Gas (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), pp. 165-199.

He was invited by the CEES to give a talk on the history of the Soviet oil and gas complex at a CEES Workshop on 10 October 2018. His paper was titled "Developing the Oil and Gas Complex during the Cold War – Challenges and Dilemmas for the Soviet Political Leadership".

Robert W. Orttung is an Associate Research Professor of International Affairs and the Director of Research of the George Washington University’s Sustainability Collaborative at the Elliot School of International Affairs. He works as the Assistant Director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies at George Washington University. He is also the Co-Editor of the Russian Analytical Digest and the Editor of Demokratizatsiya. In correlation with his work at George Washington, Robert Orttung is a non-residential fellow at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and member of the CEES advisory board.

Professor Orttung is the author/editor of numerous publications on comparative politics, Russia, Ukraine, energy security, federalism, and democracy. His latest monograph (together with Sufian Zhemukhov) is: Putin's Olympics: The Sochi Games and the Evolution of Twenty-First Century Russia (London: Routledge, 2017). Robert Orttung has recently engaged in research on Russian desinformation strategies and has presented his paper on "Russia Today's Global Information Strategy" in the framework of a CEES Workshop on 17 October 2018.

Dr. Alexander Ponomariov is reader for Orthodox Christianity and the interconnection of religion and politics (theopolitics) in Russia and Eastern Europe at the University of Passau, Germany. He was born in Siberia, lived and worked in Ukraine for many years, and earned his doctoral degree from the University of Passau. He is the author of the monograph The Visible Religion: The Russian Orthodox Church and her Relations with State and Society in Post-Soviet Canon Law (1992–2015), Frankfurt am Main & New York: Peter Lang, 2017.

Based on his recent contribution for the Russian Analytical Digest (No. 231, 25 January 2019) on problems regarding the establishment of a Ukrainian autonomous church, Alexander Ponomariov was invited by the CEES to give a talk at a CEES Workshop on 27 March 2019. The title of his lecture was "A 'Feudal Takeover': Ukraine between Church Canons and the Canons of War (2018–2019)." A revised version of this talk has been published as a CEES Working Paper 2/2019.

Dr. Stanislav Pritchin (PhD in history) is Head of the Analytical Group of the Central Eurasia Center at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Science in Moscow, and an Academy Associate of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs (London). He received his PhD on The International Legal Status of the Caspian Sea and Strategic Interests of the Russian Federation in the Region in 1991-2011 from the Institute of Oriental Studies in 2012.

Since April 2015 Stanislav has regularly taken part in the OSCE-led missions as an election observer. He has also lectured at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy in Baku, Tehran State University, Allameh Tabayaba’i University (also in Tehran), and the Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University in Bishkek. Since June 2013 Stanislav has been an executive partner of the Expert Centre for Eurasian Development (ECED), an independent and consulting group of experts based in Moscow. In 2017/2018 Stanislav was a fellow at the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House and was supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung. In his research, he focuses on political, legal and economic development of the larger Eurasian region, especially the Caspian Sea, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus. He was invited by the CEES to give a talk on "Central Asia’s Place in the Global Strategies of China, Russia and the West" at a CEES Workshop on 10 April 2019.

Prof. Dr. Hans-Henning Schröder lehrte Politikwissenschaft an der Freien Universität Berlin. Bis April 2014 war er Wissenschaftlicher Direktor der Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) in Berlin. Hans-Henning Schröder war bis 2017 im Redaktionsteam der Russlandanalysen und ist Mitglied im Herausgeberteam des Russian Analytical Digest.

Hans-Henning Schröder referierte am 24. Mai 2018 im Rahmen einer in Kooperation zwischen G2W und dem CEES organisierten Veranstaltung zum Thema Russland und die internationale Ordnung und verfasste dazu ein gleichnamiges CEES Working Paper, das im September 2018 erschienen ist.

Dr. Gergely Varga (PhD, Budapest Corvinus University) is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade in Budapest. Since 2008 he has been a research assistant of the Center for Strategic and Defense Studies of the National University of Public Service (Previously Zrínyi Miklós National Defence University), where he is currently a non-resident fellow. During the 2011-2012 academic year he was a visiting fellow at the Center for Transatlantic Relations of Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.

Dr. Varga's main research areas include transatlantic relations, Central Europe, Switzerland, NATO, and security policy. He was invited by the CEES to present his current research on Russian-Hungarian relations in the framework of CEES workshop on 14 November 2018. His paper was titled "Contemporary Hungarian-Russian Relations: Pragmatism or Something More?".

Sven Daniel Wolfe is a researcher and doctoral candidate at the Department of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Lausanne, and also an associated member of CEES. He received a Master of Science in Geography at the University of Zurich and a Master of Arts in Political Science from the European University at St Petersburg.

He is currently investigating the planning and impacts of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia and was invited to present his findings at a CEES Workshop on 28 November 2018 with a paper titled "A World Class Party … but for Whom? – Material Developments, Social Inequalities, and the 2018 Football World Cup in Russia".

Benno Zogg is Researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) Think Tank at ETH Zurich, where he focuses on the nexus between security and development as well as the international politics of the post-Soviet space, Eastern Europe and Central Asia in particular. He holds a BA in political science and modern history from the University of Zurich and an MA in conflict and development from King’s College London.

Benno Zogg's areas of research include, apart from Swiss foreign and security policy, development policy and its relation with security and organized crime in fragile states. He is further focusing on the international politics of the post-Soviet space, Eastern Europe and Central Asia in particular. The CEES has invited Mr. Zogg to give a talk on "Belarus between East and West: Strategic Reorientation or Pragmatic Maneuvers?" in the framework of a CEES Workshop on 27 February 2019.