Maria Popova

Maria Popova is Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University, Scientific Co-Director of the Jean Monnet Center Montreal and Editor of the Cambridge Elements Series on Politics and Society from Central Europe to Central Asia. She held the Jean Monnet Chair “Europe and the Rule of Law” in 2017-2021. Her research focuses on the rule of law and democracy in Europe. Her award-winning book Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies (Cambridge University Press, 2012) examines the weaponization of law to manipulate elections and control the media and the obstacles to judicial independence in Russia and Ukraine in the late-1990s-early 2000s. Her recent work has analyzed judicial reform in Ukraine, rule of law and protest, the politics of corruption prosecutions across Eastern Europe, and the links between conspiracies, corruption, and illiberalism in Europe. Her new book (co-authored with Oxana Shevel), on the roots of the Russo-Ukrainian war, entitled “Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States” is now available from Polity Press.