Supervisor: Dr Peter Duncan
Present Status: PhD candidate
Working title of thesis: Populist Mobilisation in Contemporary Social Movements
Research: My research examines contemporary protest movements in Western Europe and Russia from the perspective of populism theories. I explore psychological mechanisms of populist communication between protesters and authorities to explain grassroots mobilisation. My work focuses on the psychological tools such as socio-perceptive factors of group categorisation, social identity and collective emotions. Considering that any social phenomenon is characterised by psychological dimensions and yet cannot be explained outside socio-political context, the goal of my research is to develop a transdisciplinary approach to protest mobilisation.
My broader research interests include critical social psychology, social cognition, comparative area studies, political theory, cultural politics, phenomenology, quantitative and qualitative approaches to the study political reality.
Prior to commencing my PhD, I have studied European literatures, languages and cultures, namely, French and German. I hold a Master in Psychology from the Moscow State University. Before joining the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, I was a Teaching Assistant at the Department of Social Psychology of the Moscow State University.