Professor Richard Sakwa

BA (LSE, London), PhD (Birmingham), AcSS

Professor of Russian and European Politics

Profile

Photograph

Room: Rutherford N4.W2
Tel: 01227 (82)7409
R.Sakwa@kent.ac.uk
Office Hours: Wednesdays 9-10 and Thursdays 3-4

Prof. Sakwa joined the School in 1987, was promoted to a professorship in 1996 and was Head of School between 2001 and 2007. While completing his doctorate on Moscow politics during the Civil War (1918-21) he spent a year on a British Council scholarship at Moscow State University (1979-80), and then worked for two years in Moscow in the 'Mir' Science and Technology Publishing House. Before moving to Kent he also lectured at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prof. Sakwa is an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a member of the Advisory Boards of the Institute of Law and Public Policy in Moscow, a member of the Eurasian Political Studies Network and, since September 2002, a member of Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.

Languages: Russian [native], French [intermediate]

Research Interests

  • Democratic development in Russia
  • Nature of postcommunism
  • Global challenges facing the former communist countries
Current Projects
  • Factionalism and the Putin succession
Selected Publications
2009 The Quality of Freedom: Khodorkovsky, Putin and the Yukos Affair, Oxford University Press, 2009.
2008 Russian Politics and Society. London: Routledge 4th edition
2007 Putin: Russia’s Choice. London: Routledge 2nd edition
2003 Chechnya: a Just War Fought Unjustly? In Bruno Coppieters and Richard Sakwa (eds), Contextualising Secession. Oxford: Oxford University Press
1999 The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union, 1917-1991. London: Routledge
1999 Postcommunism. Buckingham: Open University Press
1998 Soviet Politics in Perspective. London: Routledge 2nd edition
1990 Gorbachev and his Reforms, 1985-1990. London: Philip Allan
1988 Soviet Communists in Power: a Study of Moscow during the Civil War, 1918-21. Basingstoke: Macmillan

Teaching

Undergraduate
Postgraduate
Research Supervision

Elisabeth Bergquist
MPhil in International Relations
Statehood and Democracy in Divided Societies

Asa Glock
MPhil in International Relations
The New Great Game? Post 9/11 Russian Security Discourse in Central Asia

Beatrix Nohl 
PhD in International Relations
The Paradox in Russian Foreign Policy Towards Islamic States

Per Normark
PhD in International Relations
Russian Security Policy in the Caucasus - The Case of Georgia

Elmira Satybaldieva
MPhil in Politics & Government
Politics and its Implications for Democracy in Kyrgyzstan