Irina Busygina is a political scientist and, since August 2024, a researcher at ZOiS, where she works on the project The Implications of War for Russia’s Center-Regional Relations and Territorial Stability. She is also a Research Scholar at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University and a Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis at Washington, D.C. Her research focuses on the comparative federalism and decentralisation in authoritarian countries of the post-Soviet space as well as on Russian foreign policy. Irina Busygina is particularly interested in the role of institutions in authoritarian settings. Before joining ZOiS, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University (2022-2024). Before 2022, she was Professor of Comparative Politics and Director of the Center of Comparative Governance Studies at the Higher School of Economics in Sankt Petersburg.

• The Implications of War for Centre-Regional Relations and Territorial Stability in Russia

• Comparative federalism and decentralisation in autocracies
• Russian foreign policy
• EU-Russia relations
• Regional integration

Selected Publications