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As one of the few surveys of Russian elites - perhaps the only publicly available survey -  conducted since Putin returned to the presidency in 2012, the newly released Hamilton College Levitt Poll, titled The Russian Elite 2016, represents a unique resource. Survey data on whether Russian elites support the more muscular foreign policy that has been pursued during Vladimir Putin’s third presidential term (2012-present) have been largely unavailable–until now. 

Associate Professor of Government Sharon Werning Rivera recently published an article titled “Is Russia Too Unique to Learn from Abroad? Elite Attitudes on Foreign Borrowing and the West, 1993-2012” in Sravnitel’naya politika (Comparative Politics).

Students in “U.S. Foreign Policy,” taught by Assistant Professor of Government Erica De Bruin, were granted a unique experience on Oct. 2 when three distinguished Foreign Service experts visited their class to field questions regarding U.S.-Russia relations and careers in the field.

Andrej Krickovic, assistant professor in the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia, and a former colleague of Hamilton Professor Alan Cafruny, visited Hamilton on May 3 to present a lecture titled “Russia, the United States and the War in Ukraine.” The event, sponsored by the Government Department, was well attended by Hamilton community members.

Associate Professor of Government Sharon Rivera and Lecturer in Government David Rivera were members of a panel that discussed “Russia, the West, and the War in Ukraine” on April 16 at the Center for European Studies at Syracuse University.

Students in Associate Professor of Government Sharon Rivera’s introductory comparative politics class (Govt 112) participated in a mock parliamentary debate as part of a semester-long simulation staged in the fictitional country of West Europa on April 1.

Students in the Hamilton College Program in Washington, D.C., recently met with program officers at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) for a discussion of the organization’s efforts to promote human rights and democratic change in the post-communist region. The endowment is “a U.S. initiative to strengthen democratic institutions throughout the world through private, non-governmental efforts” that “embodies a broad, bipartisan U.S. commitment to democracy.”

Sharon Werning Rivera, associate professor of government, and David W. Rivera, scholar-in-residence,  published “Is Russia a Militocracy? Conceptual Issues and Extant Findings Regarding Elite Militarization,” in Post-Soviet Affairs (No. 1 2014: 27-40). Post-Soviet Affairs is one of the leading area-studies journals for political scientists working on East Central Europe and Eurasia.  

Tim Colton, the Morris and Anna Feldberg Professor of Government and Russian Studies and the chair of the department of government at Harvard University, will present a lecture titled “Political Leadership after Communism,” on Monday, Nov. 4, at 7:30 p.m., in the Fillius Events Barn.

Linda Zhang ’13 has been awarded a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship to Russia.  A Russian studies and comparative literature major, she spent the 2011 summer and fall semesters studying at Bard-Smolny College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in St. Petersburg and Yaroslavl' Pedagogical State University.