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Marie Mendras

Former Kennan Expert

Term

September 1, 2016 — February 28, 2017

Professional affiliation

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

Wilson Center Projects

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

Full Biography

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.

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