I was trained within the tradition of French political philosophy and intellectual history, which places considerable emphasis on tracing the sociology of knowledge that makes the production of ideas possible. Unlike classical “history of ideas” approaches, I draw upon multidisciplinary approaches and perspectives. I find works in political philosophy, comparative politics, critical geopolitics, cultural studies and anthropology inspiring. I also employ multiple methodological approaches, ranging from content and discourse analysis to surveys and big-data databases, as well as in-depth fieldwork and interviews with actors.
My first master’s thesis was devoted to nostalgia for the idea of Mitteleuropa and the Habsburg Empire, which would later inform Central Europe’s first illiberal wave. I then moved to explore the ideological landscape in Russia and its ideational constellations, tracing how these impacted domestic and foreign policy. My PhD examined the 19
th-century Russian school of Slavophilism, comparing the way it used the concept of Aryan identity to the racialist interpretations emerging during the same period in Western Europe (especially Germany). My habilitation (2nd PhD) at Sciences Po Paris dealt with contemporary nationalism in Putin’s Russia. Since then, I have studied the different ideological ecosystems in today’s Russia.
My research operates along several axes that study: the ideological landscape in Eastern Europe and Russia; global illiberalism; and environmental and sustainability philosophies, especially Russia’s Arctic.
The first axis relates to contemporary critiques of liberalism, and especially the production of conservative and illiberal ideologies in post-socialist countries, particularly Russia. This research axis extends all the way back to my university years and since then, I have studied the different ideological ecosystems in today’s Russia. My latest book,
Ideology and Meaning-Making under the Putin Regime (Stanford University Press, 2025), in this sense concludes two decades of research on this topic.
During this period of study, I gradually began exploring Russia’s soft power abroad and its reception by local audiences. I have suggested that—contrary to the usual definitions of soft power as universalist—Russia has developed a particularist, “niche,” soft power that allows it to speak to different audiences abroad with different ideological repertoires. As part of this project, I have studied the reception of Russian narratives by conservative constituencies in Europe and the United States and am now working on how Russia dialogues with the Global South using themes such as sovereignty, civilizationism, and anticolonialism.