Ukraine's EU accession depends greatly on success in tackling corruption. Since 2014, Ukraine has built an extensive anticorruption institutional architecture, which has produced significant policy outcomes, but perception indices still show Ukraine as trailing most other European countries. This article summarizes Ukraine’s post-Euromaidan anticorruption reforms in the context of similar reforms pursued by other post-Communist EU candidate states pre-accession. The article then examines Ukraine’s corruption perceptions’ indices trajectory in comparative terms and wades into the debate over whether different types of perception indices proxy well for corruption incidence. The comparative look suggests that Ukraine is better prepared for EU accession in terms of control of corruption than is widely assumed.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Maria Popova is an Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University and Scientific Director of the Jean Monnet Centre Montreal. She also serves as Editor of the Cambridge Elements Series on Politics and Society from Central Europe to Central Asia. Her work explores the rule of law and democracy in Eastern Europe. Her first book, Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies, which won the American Association for Ukrainian Studies book prize in 2013, examines the weaponization of law to manipulate elections and control the media in Russia and Ukraine. Her recent articles have focused on judicial and anticorruption reform in post-Maidan Ukraine, the politics of anticorruption campaigns in Eastern Europe, conspiracies, and illiberalism. Her new book 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.

What are the longer-term implications of Russia’s renewed aggression in Ukraine for relations with its Eurasian neighbors it has often referred to as the “near abroad?”

A recent and growing literature suggests that domestic public opinion will play a decisive role in their future foreign policy choices. Based on an original mass survey with an embedded experiment, this talk examines the changes in Kazakhstani public opinion toward maintaining economic and security relations with Russia through international alliances such as the Collective Treaty Security Organization (CSTO). These changes should be viewed in light of both Russia’s war against Ukraine in February 2022 and the Russian-led CSTO’s intervention in the mass protests in Kazakhstan in January 2022. It argues that Kazakhstani public opinion has changed in significant ways — especially across ethnic lines — and that these changes are likely to impact Kazakhstan-Russian relations in general and the future of the CSTO in particular.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Pauline Jones is Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan (UM) and the Edie N. Goldenberg Endowed Director for the Michigan in Washington Program. She is also Founder and Director of the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC). Previously, she served as the Director of UM’s Islamic Studies Program (2011-14) and International Institute (2014-20). Her past work has contributed broadly to the study of institutional origin, change, and impact in Central Asia. She is currently engaged in multiple research projects: exploring how state regulation of Islam in Muslim-majority states affects citizens’ political attitudes and behavior; identifying the factors that affect compliance with health mitigation policies to combat the COVID-19 pandemic; examining the influence that evoking historical memory has on public support for foreign assistance; and developing a toolkit to assess the impact of mass protest and state narratives on domestic and foreign policy change in authoritarian regimes. She has published articles in several leading academic and policy journals, including the American Political Science Review, Annual Review of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Current History, and Foreign Affairs. She is author (or co-author) of five books, most recently The Oxford Handbook on Politics in Muslim Societies (Oxford 2021).

As part of the Stanford Global Studies Summer Film Festival, The Europe Center will hold a virtual Q&A discussion around the 2022 UK film, "The Swimmers," with Dr. Christophe Crombez (Stanford University, University of Leuven).

Please watch the movie, available on Netflix, before attending the discussion. (See trailer above.) Email questions for the Q&A discussion to the_europe_center@stanford.edu.

Description from Netflix: From war-torn Syria to the 2016 Rio Olympics, two young sisters embark on a risky voyage, putting their hearts and their swimming skills to heroic use.

*If you need any disability-related accommodation, please contact Shannon Johnson at sj1874@stanford.edu. Requests should be made by July 5, 2023.

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