Andreas Umland is an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies (SCEEUS) at the Swedish Institute of International Affairs. Umland is based in Kyiv.
Andreas Umland is also an Associate Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Umland holds a PhD in Politics from Cambridge, DPhil in History as well Diploma in Politology from FU Berlin, MPhil in Russian Studies from Oxford, and MA in Political Science from Stanford. Umland was a researcher at Stanford’s Hoover Institution as well as Harvard’s Weatherhead Center, and taught at the Ural State University in Yekaterinburg, St. Antony’s College Oxford, Shevchenko University of Kyiv, Catholic University of Eichstätt, and University of Jena. He is the editor of the ibidem Press book series “Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society” and “Ukrainian Voices.” He is a member of the boards of the International Association for Comparative Fascist Studies, and Boris Nemtsov Academic Center for the Study of Russia at Charles University of Prague.
Where do you see the most exciting research/debates happening in your field?
After a twenty-year freeze, the debate about Russia’s future scenarios is interesting again in East European studies. An intriguing issue is the interconnection between the success or failure of Russia’s foreign expansionist, imperial, and hegemonic policies and Russian domestic affairs, regime stability, and political culture—in other words, how Russia’s military failures in Ukraine will impact the Russian political system.
In comparative fascist studies, my other field of research, the most interesting discussion concerns Oleksandr Zaitsev’s new concept of “ustashism”, a type of revolutionary, ultra-nationalism in unfree or incomplete nations. In Zaitsev’s view, ustashism differs from the palingenetic extremism of titular nations in established nation-states (i.e., fascism). This kind of revolutionary and radically ethnocentric movement aspires to create a nation-state for its ethnic communities.
How has the way you understand the world changed over time, and what (or who) prompted the most significant shifts in your thinking?
With years of experience, I have come to appreciate the role of institutions in societies. Like many social science students, I started with egalitarian views, tending towards anarchism. Institutions can be criticized as instruments of oppressive power, the imposition of unequal opportunities, the repression of minorities, the suppression of dissent, etc. However, they can also fulfil important safeguarding, constructive, and stabilizing functions. The decline or disappearance of institutions in territories suffering from aggression and devastated by........