Overview

The programme is open to applications pursuing a broad range of social science research questions focusing on contemporary and recent historical developments in Russia and Eurasia. Russia and Eurasia present a range of compelling empirical and theoretical puzzles, emerging from the dislocations of economic, social and political transition, the history of policy responses thereto, and the challenges of integration and re-integration into a shifting global landscape. These puzzles demand both a thorough knowledge of the countries in question and sensitivity to methods that cut across geographic, cultural and disciplinary boundaries. The programme thus welcomes students who challenge received empirical, theoretical and methodological wisdom.

Russia Institute staff members and affiliated scholars approach the field from the disciplines of political science, political economy, sociology, political sociology and international relations, in addition to law and history.

Course Detail

The PhD Russian & Eurasian Studies is designed to encourage, support and concentrate cutting-edge research at King’s into Russia and Eurasia, with a focus on the social sciences and contemporary humanities. The course offers an opportunity unique at King’s to study Russia and the region from an interdisciplinary perspective and in the collegial company of other researchers coming from various fields and employing various methodologies, as well as those pursuing similar questions in other country cases.

In addition to the Institute’s own Russia-focused staff, the programme will draw on the community of scholars at King’s who are already providing or are able to provide supervision on Russia and Eurasia-related research, in the departments of War Studies, Political Economy, European & International Studies, History, Theology & Religious Studies and Management, as well as in The Dickson Poon School of Law.

Research students in Russian & Eurasian Studies will join a dynamic research culture at King’s, a major research-led university, with a significant number of research students in social science and public policy, as well as in arts and humanities. The Graduate School provides facilities and runs research training courses. Students will receive training through the King’s Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Doctoral Training Centre (KISS DTC), in a programme designed individually to support their research projects and impart broad methodological competencies, alongside their colleagues from other departments and the other Global Institutes. The Russia Institute will run its own research seminars focusing on relevant current research at King’s and elsewhere, and students will have access to concurrent seminars at other departments and institutes.

Information is current, but staff members can change.

Head of group/division

Dr Samuel Greene