This book (forthcoming from Yale University Press in 2023) examines four big topics in Chinese history and during the present times. The EAST in the title of the book stands for examination, autocracy, stability, and technology. Examination refers to the civil service exam, keju in Chinese, instituted in 587 and thevarious successor tools deployed today by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to homogenize ideas, evaluation metrics and organizational process.

The political economy of natural resources is not a new area of study, but the presentation on the Caspian Basin countries is from a less-researched angle. This talk focuses on the characteristics of petro-authoritarianism, factors of strength in despotic governance, and the political effects of rich natural resources in countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia. The main question is whether the non-transparent management of oil and revenues is paramount to establishing authoritarian governance and the klan regime.

This presentation explores the reframing of Russian identity and foreign policy amongst political and intellectual elites. These elites now face the urgent challenge of maintaining an appeal to so-called traditional values, and positioning Russia as an alternative to Europe, while attempting to intensify and extend relations with Asia, which increasingly means China. However Russia's weakened economic and political relationship with Europe also places it in an increasingly subordinate position in relation to its key partner in Asia.

The political economy of natural resources is not a new area of study, but the presentation on the Caspian Basin countries is from a less-researched angle. This talk focuses on the characteristics of petro-authoritarianism, factors of strength in despotic governance, and the political effects of rich natural resources in countries such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia. The main question is whether the non-transparent management of oil and revenues is paramount to establishing authoritarian governance and the klan regime.

A key feature contributing to public support for Putin over the past two decades is high levels of trust in him as an individual. This trust has shaped patterns of Russian political participation and allowed Putin to successfully deflect responsibility for unpopular government actions. This presentation will examine the relationship between trust in Putin, political participation and regime stability, while considering the impact of the war in Ukraine on public support for the regime.

Among the key puzzles of Ukraine’s post-communist development have been its poor economic performance and an inability to develop a fully rule-of-law state. The two issues are related, my research suggests, by way of “the Ukrainian oligarchy”, the country’s dominant political economy governance regime. Even before the latest Russian invasion, therefore, it was clear that reform of this institution would be crucial, not only for Ukraine to achieve greater prosperity and security, but also to ensure its survival as a sovereign nation state in a “bad neighbourhood” over the longer term.

In this talk, I argue that unconventional ways of political contention successfully shape the regime, its elites, and its forms of oppression even under the most authoritarian contexts and repressions. Using the context and temporal development of the Kazakh Spring protests (2019-ongoing), I focus on how the interplay between the repressive regime and democratisation struggles define and shape each other.

In Moldova, the number of dual citizens has risen exponentially in the last decades. Before annexation, many saw Russia as granting citizenship to – or passportizing – large numbers in Crimea. In this talk, I interrogate why these communities engage with dual citizenship and how this intersects, or not, with identity. I explore how and why Russian citizenship was largely and surprisingly absent in Crimea before annexation, compare it with the strong presence of Romanian citizenship in Moldova, and explore how far identity helps explain this difference.