My research explores the contestation of hegemonic orders, norm-breaking behaviors, and the evolving dynamics of international governance, with a particular focus on Russia and the European Union (EU). My work examines Russia’s challenge to the Liberal International Order, analyzing how its foreign policy disrupts existing norms and reshapes geopolitical alignments. For this research, I have conducted extensive field research in Armenia, Moldova, Brussels and Moscow to assess the impact of Russian influence on democratization and European integration. Building on this regional expertise, my current project, funded by a postdoc.mobility grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, shifts to the international level, investigating how multilateral organizations respond to norm violations like Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Book
EU and Russian hegemony in the ‘Shared Neighbourhood’: Between coercion, prescription, and co-optation. (2024). EU in International Affairs Book Series, Palgrave. Available open access here.
Articles
Crisis as a catalyst for democratisation: how Russia’s escalation of the war in Ukraine facilitated democratic progress in Moldova. (2025). Contemporary Politics, online first. DOI: 10.1080/13569775.2025.2506174
Soft Hegemony in the Shared Neighbourhood: How the EU and Russia Co-opted Moldovan and Armenian Societies between 2000 and 2021. (2025). Europe-Asia Studies, 77(3), 389-414. DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2025.2480102
Political Parties and Russia’s Escalation of the War in Ukraine: Consequences for Left-Wing Parties in Moldova. (2024). Cambridge Review of International Affairs, online first. DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2024.2426781
Bringing Agency Back in: Neighbourhood Countries’ Hegemonic Power Relation with the EU and Russia. (2024). Journal of European Security, 33(4), 615-643. DOI: 10.1080/09662839.2024.2390536
Quo Vadis, Moldova? The Role of Social and Political Elites in the Norm Internalization Process. (2022). Democratization 29(3): 487–506. [with Dorina Baltag] DOI: 10.1080/13510347.2021.1963237
Book chapters
Northern Sea Route from the Russian and EU Perspectives. (2022). In Pak, E. V., Krivtsov A. I., & Zagrebelnaya, N. S. (eds.) The Handbook of the Arctic: A Broad and Comprehensive Overview, Singapore: Springer Nature, 523–541. [with Egor V. Pak] DOI: 10.1007/978-981-16-9250-5\_26-1
Articles reviewed by editor
Political Threat Assessment in Eastern Neighbourhood and Western Balkan Countries. (2025). [with F. Bieber, S. Blockmans, L. Delcour, A. Ermurachi, K. Kakachia, A. Osypchuk, P. Petrović, L. Pollozhani, A. Suslov] REUNIR Working Paper
Divided Paths to Europe: Politicization and the 2024 Referendum in Moldova. (2025). Moldovan Analytical Digest 1: 6–10. DOI: 10.3929/ETHZ-B-000715250
The Origins and Evolutions of the EU's Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policies in the Area of Democracy Promotion. (2024) [with L. Delcour, L. Pollozhani, F. Bieber, A. Dandashly, M. Kmezic & G. Noutcheva. 2024] REUNIR Working Paper
What stands in the way of ‘the end of the rule of thieves’? The curious case of the Republic of Moldova. (3 November 2021) [with Dorina Baltag] LSE Public Policy Blog
EU and Russian Coercive Strategies towards the Shared Neighbourhood: The Case of Moldova. (2021). Der Donauraum 61(4): 37–56. DOI: 10.7767/dedo.2021.61.4.37