Nikolai Petrov

Consulting Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Programme

Headshot of Nikolai Petrov

Biography

Nikolai Petrov is a consulting fellow on the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House in London and professor in the political science department at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow.

His current research at Chatham House involves deconstructing the decision-making process in Putin’s Russia, that remains largely hidden from the public eye.


The author or editor of dozens of analyses of Russia’s politics, post-Soviet transformation, the socioeconomic and political development of Russia’s regions, democratization, federalism, and elections, his recent publications include Russia 2025: Scenarios for the Russian Future and The State of Russia: What Comes Next (coedited with Maria Lipman).

Nikolai is a member of the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia), the Scientific Advisory Council and the European Dialogue group – which runs a Ukraine quadrologue, and projects on European Russia and thirty years after communism.

He also participates in the Committee on Civic Initiatives and at the Center for Strategic Research led until recently by Alexei Kudrin.

He holds a PhD in geography from Moscow State University.

Past experience

2013 - presentProfessor of political science, Higher School of Economics, Moscow
1996-2013Scholar in residence, Carnegie Moscow Center
1990-95Advisor to the Russian parliament, government, and presidential administration
1982-2009Researcher, head of the laboratory of social geography, academic secretary, Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences