Professional Affiliation

Senior Research Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House; Professor, Political Science, Higher School of Economics in Moscow

Expert Bio

Nikolai Petrov is a senior research fellow on the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House in London and professor in the political science department at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

His current research at Chatham House involves deconstructing the decision-making process in Putin’s Russia, that remains largely hidden from the public eye.

The author or editor of dozens of analyses of Russia’s politics, post-Soviet transformation, the socioeconomic and political development of Russia’s regions, democratization, federalism, and elections, his recent publications include Russia 2025: Scenarios for the Russian Future and The State of Russia: What Comes Next (coedited with Maria Lipman).

Nikolai is a member of the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia), the Scientific Advisory Council and the European Dialogue group – which runs a Ukraine quadrologue, and projects on European Russia and thirty years after communism.

He also participates in the Committee on Civic Initiatives and at the Center for Strategic Research led until recently by Alexei Kudrin.

He holds a PhD in geography from Moscow State University.

Wilson Center Project

Ethno-Territorial Conflicts in the Post-Soviet Space: Origins, Development and Their Regulation

Project Summary

A study of ethnic-territorial claims and conflicts, analyzing their roots (ethnic settlement and boundary shifts) in order to work out strategies to regulate them in connection with the territorial state development. Reviews the various conflicts, their origins and evolution in a comparative-geographical analysis, noting concrete measures and mechanisms of how to regulate existing conflicts and avoid new ones.