Dr. Noah Buckley

  Comparitive political economy   Eastern Europe   Political Economy   Russian, Soviet, East and central European politics   Statistical and simulation methodologies

In my 11 published, peer-reviewed journal articles, 3 papers under review or prepared for submission, and 3 projects in progress, I have worked to advance our understanding of the politics of Putin-era Russia, how authoritarian government sustains itself, and how the mass public understands their authoritarian environment. My research has been centered around using cutting-edge quantitative statistical techniques and original, micro-level datasets. While this area of research has gained additional relevance since Russia"s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, my work has already contributed to topics like the roles of elections in maintaining Putin"s power and the social nature of support for authoritarian leaders like Putin. In developing my research, I have maintained a large network of intellectual collaborators. I have also participated in and presented at a notable 17 international or Ireland-based conferences or workshops in the five years I have been at Trinity. These included the foremost conferences in the field and in Europe. The next steps in the development of my research agenda include both expanding into the study of wartime public opinion in Russia"s authoritarian regime and returning to the important question of how the regime was able to reach this tragic point. One of the foundational aspects of my research has been the construction of a number of individual-level datasets that allow me to look inside public support for autocrats like Putin in an unprecedented way. I have been able to exploit these datasets to learn about how the Russian public views their government and how the elites who staff that government are composed. For example, I have collected the largest single database of individual-level public opinion survey responses of Russians and have begun using this data to answer questions about Russia"s lack of democracy, why Russians support the war in Ukraine, and other topics. In combination with new collection of experimental survey data in Russia (currently underway), and anticipated data collection in countries including China, Turkey, and Kazakhstan in a coming ERC application project, I will be able to continue contributing both theoretically and empirically to timely and important research questions.