Carolina Seminar with Guzel Garifullina (Political Science, UNC)

Popular elections in Russia have often been replaced by some forms of indirect elections or appointments at both regional and municipal level. Scholars have studied various effects such institutional changes have on the characteristics of political leaders. Guzel Garifullina builds a theory connecting leader selection institutions with political ambition and explores whether the observed changes lead to self-selection of more risk-seeking or more risk-averse individuals into candidacy. She tests the theory in a laboratory experiment staged in Russia.

Guzel Garifullina is a PhD Candidate at the Political Science Department. Her work focuses on political elite behavior and policy choices, with application to subnational level politics in Russia. Before coming to UNC, she worked as a research fellow at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

The Carolina Seminar: Russia and Its Empires, East and West is co-sponsored by the Carolina Seminar Program, the UNC Department of History, and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies. Please note that the participants will give an overview of their projects, but will not read a formal paper. Instead, papers or book chapters will be circulated ahead of time to those who are interested in attending and participating in the discussion. Please contact Dr. Eren Tasar for more information.