Professional Affiliation

Professor, School of International Affairs, Sciences Po University, Paris

Expert Bio

Dr. Marie Mendras is a political scientist with the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and professor at Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs. In 2019, she was a visiting scholar at Hong Kong Baptist University, and in 2016-17 Kennan Institute expert at the Woodrow Wilson Center. She was an Associate Fellow at Chatham House in 2011-16. In 2010, she served as Directrice de la Prospective at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In earlier years, she was a permanent consultant for the Policy Planning Staff of the MFA. She also carried several election observation missions in Russia and Ukraine in the 1990s and 2000s.

Dr. Mendras is the author, among other works,  of Russian Politics. The Paradox of a Weak State (2012), “Russian Elites Worry. The Unpredictability of Putinism” (2016), “Vote populaire par temps d’épidémie”, Esprit (2020), “Putin-Biden. A Double-Edged Summit”, Desk Russie (2021), “The Sinking Legitimacy of Vladimir Putin’s Presidency”, Baltic Rim Economies, October 2021. She was educated at Sciences Po university, SAIS - Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University, and hold a PhD from Sciences Po Paris.

Wilson Center Project

“Elites’ Estrangement from Decision-Making in Putin’s Russia”

Project Summary

Since the annexation of Crimea, war in Donbas, and confrontation with the West, the Russian leadership has been behaving in a more and more authoritarian and opaque way. The ruling circle is shrinking, elites more broadly are estranged from decision, dissident voices experience the worst harassment since the 1970s, and society is kept dis-informed by government-controlled media. There no longer is a decision making process in Moscow. Decisions are made, but never explained, rarely attached to a name or an institution. Accountability is absent. Who makes policy? Who decides, who implements actions decided “at the top”? Ruling elites, beyond Putin’s inner circle, are now kept out of decisions. They are expected to remain silent on Ukraine and Syria, on political legislation and economic choices. They might not challenge the leadership directly, but will not actively support it either. They are a key factor in assessing Russia's capabilities and options.

Major Publications

Russian Politics: The Paradox of a Weak State (Oxford University Press, paperback edition, New York, 2014)

"The Rising Cost of Russia’s Authoritarian Foreign Policy", in M. Light and D. Cadier, eds., Russia’s Foreign Policy. : Ideas, domestic politics and external relations, (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2015)

"Russian Elites Worry: The Unpredictability of Putinism”, Transatlantic Academy 2015-2016 Paper Series, No. 9, GMF, June 2016