Post-Soviet Think Tanks: The Influence of Think Tanks on Policy Processes in Post-Soviet States

Prof. Vera Axyonova

The influence of think tanks on policy processes and civil society in non-consolidated democracies and authoritarian regimes is the focus of this presentation, which aims to map the local think tank landscapes and examine their resources and strategies used to advance certain foreign and security policy choices. The analysis draws on extensive data, including an original set of expert interviews with think tankers, as well as on think tanks’ constitutive documents and publications. The project contributes to the literature on think tanks’ participation in public policy-making by explicating policy influence mechanisms and challenges faced by think tanks in post-Soviet non-consolidated democracies and authoritarian regimes.

Dr. Vera Axyonova is a postdoctoral researcher and Assistant Professor at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. Her research focuses on international support to democratization and conflict management, as well as policy processes in former Soviet states. She was previously Hurford Next Generation Fellow with the Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Researcher and Adjunct Lecturer at Fulda University of Applied Sciences. Axyonova is the author of The European Union’s Democratization Policy for Central Asia: Failed in Success or Succeeded in Failure? (Ibidem, 2014) and editor of European Engagement under Review: Exporting Values, Rules, and Practices to the Post-Soviet Space (Ibidem, 2016).