NYC Russia Public Policy Series: Is it Time to Rethink Our Russia Policy?



Featuring:

Evelyn N. Farkas, President, Farkas Global Strategies; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia
Rose Gottemoeller, Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Freeman Spogli Institute, Stanford University; former Deputy Secretary General of NATO
Thomas Graham, Distinguished Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Senior Advisor, Kissinger Associates
David J. Kramer, Senior Fellow in the Vaclav Havel Program for Human Rights and Diplomacy, Steven J. Green School of International and Public Affairs, Florida International University

In this webinar, a distinguished group of academics and former diplomats will debate the current state of US-Russia relations and offer their recommendations for dealing with the Russian government.

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Russian Electoral Interference: Present, Past, and Future



Featuring:

Renée DiResta, Technical Research Manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory.
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Elizabeth Ware Packard Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Pennsylvania, Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center
David Shimer, Author of Rigged: America, Russia, and One Hundred Years of Covert Electoral Interference, PhD Candidate at Oxford University

In the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, one of the most enduring stories has been the scale with which Russia exploited weaknesses in the digital information environment to interfere with foreign elections, both domestically and abroad.

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Russian Civil Society in the Time of COVID-19



Featuring:

Sarah Lindemann-Komorova, Scholar and Community Development Activist based in Novosibirsk
Andrey Semenov, Associate Research Scholar at the MacMillan Center at Yale University and Senior Researcher at the Center for Comparative History and Politics
Valerie Sperling, Professor of Political Science at Clark University
Elena Topoleva-Soldunova, Director of the Agency for Social Information, Moscow
Denis Volkov, Deputy Director of the Levada Center, Moscow

Our distinguished panelists will discuss what civil society efforts look like in Russia in the time of COVID-19, how challenges that existed before the pandemic have manifested and been exacerbated, and what the future is for Russian civil society post-COVID.

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Russia’s New Tools of Influence in Africa



Featuring:

Roman Badanin, editor-in-chief of the investigative media outlet Proekt
Shelby Grossman, Research Scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory
Kimberly Marten, Professor & Chair of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University
Khadeja Ramali, independent social data analyst and researcher

Over recent years, Russia has played an increasingly active role in influencing the domestic politics of African countries, including Central African Republic, Madagascar and Libya. Russia’s influence activities have grown in their intensity and range, from mounting online social media campaigns, to soliciting economic contracts and even conducting security operations. This distinguished panel of scholars and journalists will share their experiences and insights about Russia’s new toolkit of influence in Africa.

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NYC Russia Public Policy Series: Russia in the Time of COVID-19



Featuring:

Svetlana Borodina, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Anthropology, Rice University
Evan Gershkovich, Reporter, Moscow Times
Gulnaz Sharafutdinova, Reader, Russia Institute, King’s College London
Regina Smyth, Professor of Political Science, University of Indiana, Bloomington
Pjotr Sauer, Reporter, Moscow Times

The COVID-19 pandemic has swept across the world with alarming speed, but impact and reactions have varied tremendously across countries. Our panel will assess the impact COVID-19 has had on Russian society, including vulnerable populations, as well as Russian politics.

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Impeachment – From the Ukrainian Perspective



Join us for the second meeting of the 2019-2020 New York Russia Public Policy Seminar, a forum co-hosted by the Harriman Institute and New York University’s Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia! As the United States enters the next phase of the impeachment process, join our panel of experts as they consider what this means for Ukraine, Ukraine’s relations with Russia, and Russia and Ukraine’s relations with the U.S. moving forward.

Watch the event recording on YouTube here.

Read the event recap here

PANELISTS

Oxana Shevel 
Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University

Olga Onuch
Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Manchester

Jordan Gans-Morse
Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University

Keith Darden
Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University

Moderated by
Alexander Cooley, Director of the Harriman Institute, Columbia University
Joshua Tucker, Director of the New York University Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia

 

This event is supported by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. It is part of Columbia’s Russian Studies & Policy event series.


Thinking About a Future Russia Policy: Presidential Politics, Challenges and Issues



Featuring:

Matt Duss, Foreign Policy Advisor to the Bernie Sanders 2020 Presidential Campaign
Carmel Martin, National Policy Director for the Beto O’Rourke 2020 Presidential Campaign
Celeste Wallander, Advisor on foreign policy for the Pete Buttigieg 2020 Presidential Campaign
Peter Clement, Senior Fellow at the Harriman Institute

Join our distinguished panelists as they examine how U.S. foreign policy towards Russia is likely to be approached by a future Democratic administration.

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Remaking the social contract? Pension reform and protest in Russia



Featuring:
Kristy Ironside, Assistant Professor in History and Classical Studies at McGill University.
Katerina Tertytchnaya, Lecturer in Comparative Politics in the Department of Political Science at University College London.
Andrei Kolesnikov, Senior Fellow and Chair of the Russian Domestic Politics and Political Institutions Program at the Carnegie Moscow Center.

Please join our distinguished speakers for a panel discussion examining the Kremlin’s recent attempts at reforming the pension system in Russia. 

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NYC Russia Public Policy Series: What do we know about Russia’s 2016 Twitter operation during the US Presidential election campaign?



Featuring:

Cody Buntain, Postdoctoral Researcher at NYU’s Social Media and Political Participation (SMaPP) Lab
Kate Starbird, Assistant Professor, Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE), University of Washington
Patrick Warren, Associate Professor of Economics, Clemson University
Darren Linvill, Associate Professor of Communication, Clemson University
Leon Yin, Research Scientist at NYU’s Social Media and Political Participation (SMaPP) Lab, Research Affiliate at Data & Society’s Media Manipulation Initiative

One of the most important – and enduring – stories to come out of the US 2016 Presidential election campaign was the potential role played by Russia’s “Internet Research Agency” in (potentially) attempting to influence political behavior surrounding the election though the use of digital (dis)information campaigns. On October 17, 2018, Twitter released a collection of over 10 million tweets that it reported were produced by IRA controlled accounts. Our distinguished panelists will present their findings after examining these tweets over the past three months.

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The New U.S.-Russian Cold War: Who Is To Blame?



Featuring:

Michael McFaul, Professor of Political Science, Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Former U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation
Stephen F. Cohen, Professor Emeritus  of Russian Studies and Politics at New York University and Princeton University

U.S.-Russia relations are at their worst since the Soviet era. How did relations between the Untied States and Russia deteriorate to this point and who is to blame?

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Putin’s Last Term?



Featuring:

Henry Hale, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University, Co-Director of the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia) 
Yoshiko M. Herrera, Professor of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Director of UW-Madison Partnership with Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan
Kimberly Marten, Ann Whitney Olin Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Director of the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations at Columbia’s Harriman Institute
Graeme Robertson, Professor of Political Science, UNC Chapel Hill

Will Putin actually become a “lame duck” in the conventional sense of term-limited presidents? If so, when?  If not, why? What does this hold for policy – both foreign and domestic – in the coming years? And what does it mean for Russian politics in Putin’s “last term”? If Putin really is going to be stepping aside, then what comes next?

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Russia Hosts the World Cup: Sports and Politics in 2018



Featuring:

Jane Buchanan, Associate Director, Europe and Central Asia Division, Human Rights Watch
Natalie Koch, Associate Professor, O’Hanley Faculty Scholar, Department of Geography, Syracuse University Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs
Gabriele Marcotti, Senior Writer at ESPN, Columnist at The Times of London

Our panel, consisting of leading academics, activists and sports journalists will consider the relationship between global sporting events, their world governing bodies and local political agendas, and will identify the trends, themes and tensions that will drive international media coverage of the tournament.

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Russia and the 2016 US Presidential Election: What Happened, What do We Know, and What are We Going to Find Out?



Featuring:

Timothy Frye, Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, Research Director for the International Center for the Study of Institutions and Development at the Higher School of Economics, Editor of Post-Soviet Affairs
Seva Gunitsky, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of Toronto
Julia Ioffe, Staff Writer, The Atlantic
Andrei Soldatov, Russian investigative journalist, Co-founder and Editor of Agentura.ru
Joshua A. Tucker, Professor of Politics, affiliated Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies, affiliated Professor of Data Science at New York University, Director of NYU’s Jordan Center for Advanced Study of Russia, Co-Founder and Co-Directors of NYU Social Media and Political Participation (SMaPP) laboratory

Perhaps no single event in recent memory has had such an effect on – and continues to have the potential to affect – US-Russian relations then the ongoing allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 United States Presidential Elections.

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Back to the Future in Afghanistan? Prospects for U.S. – Russia Cooperation in a Time of Regional Uncertainty



Featuring:

Barnett Rubin, Senior Fellow and Associate Director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University
Ekaterina Stepanova, Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Unit, National Research Institute of the World Economy & International Relations (IMEMO), Editor-in-Chief of “Pathways to Peace and Security”
Dipali Mukhopadyay, Professor of International Security, Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs, Faculty Affiliate at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

The Trump Administration’s announcement that it would increase the US troop presence in Afghanistan signals a new force-based approach to solving the conflict. How are Washington and Moscow approaching the promotion of peace and stability in the region and what are their underlying assumptions and constraints?

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Analyzing Russia and the Changing Ideas Industry: Addressing the Decline of Regional Expertise in Academic and the Policy World



Featuring: Daniel Drezner, Professor of International Politics, The Fletcher School, Tufts University
Discussants: Alexandra Vacroux (Executive Director, Davis Center, Harvard University), Stephen Sestanovich (Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Diplomacy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and George F. Kennan Senior Fellow for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations)

In this panel we will explore how the current crisis in US-Russia relations has further magnified the shortage of US-based regional expertise.

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Kompromat: What it is, and what it means for US-Russia relations



Featuring:

Keith Darden, Associate Professor, School of International Service, American University
Miriam Elder, World Editor, BuzzFeed News
Katy E. Pearce, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of Washington

Our panelists will address the history of Kompromat in both the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet successor states, the role it is currently playing in Russian politics, the ways in which in technological changes have impacted Kompromat, as well as the the potential effects of Kompromat on US-Russian relations.

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NYC Russia Public Policy Series: The Reset Trap? Reconfiguring U.S.-Russia Relations in a Time of International Uncertainty



Featuring:

Stephen Kotkin, Professor in History and International Affairs, Woodrow Wilson School, History Department, Princeton University
Daniel Nexon, Associate Professor, Department of Government and School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Yuval Weber, Assistant Professor, National Research University Higher School of Economics in the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs

Our speakers will address the issue of why reconfiguring US-Russia relations has proven so difficult and why efforts to improve U.S.-Russia relations in the past, including the “Reset” under the Obama administration, have unravelled.

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