Paranoia with a purpose

This article considers the political uses of conspiracy theories (CTs). It is widely accepted that post-Soviet citizens are prone to believe CTs, but there has been little research about the

Is Belief in Conspiracy Theories Pathological?

What are the origins of belief in conspiracy theories? The dominant approach to studying conspiracy theories links belief to social stresses or personality type, and does not take into account

Ethnic Cues and Redistributive Preferences in Post-Soviet Georgia

How do citizens in weak democracies evaluate claims on government assistance made by other ethnic groups? This paper analyzes data from an original survey experiment in the Republic of Georgia

Historical narratives and post-conflict reconciliation

How malleable are the attitudes of people in a post-conflict society toward their former adversaries? I conduct a laboratory experiment in Azerbaijan, which fought a war against its neighbor Armenia

Between Russia and a Hard Place

This essay asks how Central Asian states have responded to Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and salvos against the West, as a means to assess how Russia and the Central Asian

Reinterpreting the enemy

How do geopolitical beliefs affect the attribution of blame for violent conflict? It is usually assumed that citizens in post-conflict societies come to adopt official nationalist discourses that fixate on

Allies or Agitators?

In recent years, scholars have argued that protests that employ nonviolent tactics attract greater support and are therefore more likely to succeed than those that use violence. We argue that

From Company Town to Company Village

In India’s contemporary model of extractive industry, the Company Town has been replaced by the ‘company village.’ Private sector firms throughout India’s mineral belt now occupy sectors that were, until

Rural land dispossession in China and India

Narrating Hellas

Modern Greece may be one of the first European states to be branded for touristic exploitation from its very inception. This branding resides undemocratically within its national consciousness and highlights