This lecture is a part of the Council Conversations & The "East meets West" speaker series - REEES (Russian, Eurasian, and Eastern European Studies program) at Northwestern University.
Meeting URL
Abstract: Perception of democracy, choice of alliances, and attitude toward the major crises -are among the aspects that illustrate the political divides separating the East from the West. Three researchers come together to discuss the case of Serbia as the country and nation found at the epicenter of such divides. Olga Kamenchuk (Northwestern University) will employ comparative polling data from the UK, Germany, France, Russia, Ukraine, and Serbia collected from 2017 to 2020. She will discuss Serbian's mental models of democracy, liberal and illiberal, compare to Western Europe and Russia prior to Russia's war on Ukraine. Nikola Jovic and Milan Krstic (Belgrade University), based on survey data collected in Serbia in 2020 and 2022, will look at trends the public opinion and values are taking since the start of the war in Ukraine. They will answer several questions: (a) has the war in Ukraine changed the attitudes of Serbians; (b) how do Serbians see the parties in the conflict; (c) what is their position towards the war?
Speakers:
Dr. Olga Kamenchuk is an associate research professor at the Institute for Policy Research and an associate professor of instruction at the School of Communication at Northwestern University. She is a Co-Principal Investigator on the Comparative National Elections Project for Russian, Ukrainian, and Serbian electoral studies. Dr. Kamenchuk's scholarship centers on the intersection of political psychology, public opinion, and policy analysis across a range of international security and intercultural contexts, especially in the Eurasian region.
Dr. Nikola Jovic is a researcher and assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Belgrade. Serbia. He has conducted over 100 research projects for companies, NGOs. think tanks, international institutions, academic institutions. embassies, and political parties. His academic interests lie primarily in the field of quantitative and qualitative research methods.
Dr. Milan Krstic is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Belgrade. Serbia. He is one of the founders of the Center for Social Dialogue and Regional Initiatives and a member of the Center for the Studies of the USA at the University of Belgrade.
