Insights

We’re delighted to welcome scholars from around the world to our campus community. Meet the individuals who will be joining the Davis Center this academic year.

An uncritical embrace of Europe chafes uncomfortably against the anti-colonial nature of Ukraine’s resistance, write Davis Center alumna Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon and her co-author Emily Couch.

"The region’s significance has been underestimated because it cannot be understood from the perspective of a single scholar working in a single academic discipline," writes historian Kelly O'Neill, director of the Davis Center's Imperiia Project.

A mix of gifts and interpersonal elite ties marks China’s approach to Central Asia, contrasting starkly with a Western approach focused on political norms and principles, writes Nargis Kassenova.

Stephen Jones, director of the Davis Center's Program on Georgian Studies, remembers Richard Hovannisian, a founding father of South Caucasus studies in the U.S., who died this month at the age of 90.

After the Soviet collapse, Russia underwent not a democratic transition but a temporary weakening of the state, making re-autocratization inevitable, writes former Davis Center fellow Maria Snegovaya.

Although Georgians largely favor joining NATO, writes Davis Center alum Joshua Kucera, analysts see tension in Tbilisi’s relations with the bloc: cozy enough to draw Russia’s ire, but not nearly close enough to protect against it.

In a new policy memo, Davis Center senior fellow Nargis Kassenova argues that Central Asia should follow the EU’s example in fostering regional cooperation and integration, particularly around the water-energy-climate change nexus.

Although Prigozhin’s mutiny did not lead to a bloodbath, the consequences for Russia—and Putin—could be grave, writes Harvard professor Timothy Colton.