The Centre for Comparative Governance Studies was launched in September 2019 under the leadership of Professor Irina Busygina at HSE University. The research team of the Centre is made up of employees of the Department of Political Science and International Relations (HSE) as well as colleagues from Central European University and other educational and research institutes. The Centre studies power and governance in multi-level political systems, including supranational unions (European Union, Eurasian Economic Union) as well as national states, primarily the Russian Federation.
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Book proposal summary: Our book challenges the common perception of authoritarian regimes as incompatible with federalism/federal practices and decentralization. We focus on several cases, namely post-Soviet countries, where federal institutions and various forms of decentralization have become integral parts of non-democratic political regimes. We describe how these regimes have managed to exploit federalism and decentralization as useful instruments to help them to preserve control, avoid political instability and shift blame to the regional authorities in times of crises and policy failures. Most recently the post-Soviet authoritarian regimes have exploited federal arrangements and policy decentralization to avoid public disapproval and accountability during the coronavirus crisis.
Kennan institute arranged an online workshop on constitutional changes and political regime stability in Russia. Research fellow Ivan Grigoriev participated in the workshop and offered his vision of particularity of reforms related to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation.

Professor Delcour presented results of her research on the topic 'The EU and its “eastern neighbourhood”: multiple external influences, policy transfer and domestic change'.