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Photograph of Keith Darden

Keith Darden Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Politics, Governance & Economics Politics, Governance & Economics

Contact
SIS | Politics, Governance & Economics
School of International Service 352
Scheduled on Calendly or email for in-person appointments
Degrees
Ph.D., M.A. Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, BA, Political Science, Stanford University

Languages Spoken
Russian, German
Favorite Spot on Campus
Politics, Governance, and Economics Dept suite
Book Currently Reading
Soviet Milk, Nora Ikstena
Bio
Prof. Darden’s research focuses on nationalism, state-building, and the politics of Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. His forthcoming book, Resisting Occupation in Eurasia (Cambridge University Press), explores the development of durable national loyalties through education and details how they explain over a century of regional patterns in voting, secession, and armed resistance in Ukraine, Eurasia and the world. His award-winning first book, Economic Liberalism and Its Rivals (Cambridge University Press, 2009) explored the formation of international economic institutions among the post-Soviet states, and explained why countries chose to join the Eurasian Customs Union, the WTO, or to eschew participation in any trade institutions. At SIS, Prof. Darden teaches courses in international relations, comparative politics, and the politics of Eurasia. Beyond SIS, Prof. Darden is co-editor of the Cambridge University Press Book Series Problems of International Politics and is actively engaged with Russia and Eurasia though the Bilateral Working Group on US-Russia Relations, PONARS Eurasia, the Valdai Discussion Club, and other forums. His analyses and interviews concerning events in Ukraine have been published in Foreign Affairs, Survival, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, LeMonde, National Geographic, The National Interest, Russia in Foreign Affairs, the AP, the New Yorker, and Reuters, and he has been interviewed on CNN, Washington Public Radio’s Kojo Nnamdi Show, Sirius XM radio, CBS, Voice of America, Echo Moscow, Ukrainian television (Channel 5), and C-SPAN.
See Also
Professor Darden's Website
For the Media
To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

Teaching

Spring 2024

  • SISU-106 First Year Seminar: Global Antisemitism

Fall 2024

  • SIS-619 Special Studies in Int'l Pol: Nationalism and Identity

  • SISU-419 Senior Capstone: Int'l Studies: Rise/Resurgence of Nationalism

Scholarly, Creative & Professional Activities

Honors, Awards, and Fellowships

  • William Cromwell Award for Outstanding Teaching, 2023
  • Lex Hixon ’63 Prize for Teaching Excellence in the Social Sciences, 2007
  • Gregory M. Luebbert Prize for Best Article in Comparative Politics (2008) for “The Great Divide: Literacy, Nationalism, and the Communist Collapse.” World Politics, 2007
  • Ed Hewett Prize (For Economic Liberalism and its Rivals), 2010 
  • Senior Research Fellow, MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University
  • Academy Fellow, Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, Harvard University
  • Fellow, Wissenschaftzentrum fuer Sozialforschung, Berlin
 

Selected Publications

  • Resisting Occupation in Eurasia: Mass Schooling and the Creation of Durable National Loyalties, Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming.
  • Economic Liberalism and Its Rivals: The Formation of International Institutions Among the Post-Soviet States, Cambridge University Press, 2009. Winner of the 2010 Ed A. Hewett Book Prize (Awarded by the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research for an outstanding publication on the political economy of the centrally planned economies of the former Soviet Union and East Central Europe and their transitional successors.)
  •  “The Promethean Dilemma: Third-Party Nation-building in occupied territories.” With Harris Mylonas, Ethnopolitics, March 2012.
  • “The Integrity of Corrupt States: Graft as an Informal Political Institution,” Politics and Society 36:1, (March 2008) Republished in Russian translation as “Tselostnost’ Korrumpirovannykh Gosudarstv: Vziatochnichestvo kak Neformal’nyj Institut Upravleniia,” Prognosis, 2:18, (Summer 2009)
  • “The Great Divide: Literacy, Nationalism, and the Communist Collapse.” World Politics, Volume 59 (October 2006), pp.83-115. With Anna Grzymala-Busse. Winner of the Gregory M. Luebbert Prize for Best Article in Comparative Politics Published in 2006 or 2007, Presented by the American Political Science Association (APSA). Re-published in Patrick O’Neil and Ronald Rogowski, eds., Essential Readings in Comparative Politics, Third Edition. (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2009)

AU Experts

Area of Expertise

nationalism, state-building, and the politics of Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, US-Russia relations.

Additional Information

Keith Darden’s research focuses on nationalism, state-building, and the politics of Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia. His forthcoming book, Resisting Occupation in Eurasia (Cambridge University Press), explores the development of durable national loyalties through education and details how they explain over a century of regional patterns in voting, secession, and armed resistance in Ukraine, Eurasia and the world. His award-winning first book, Economic Liberalism and Its Rivals (Cambridge University Press, 2009) explored the formation of international economic institutions among the post-Soviet states, and explained why countries chose to join the Eurasian Customs Union, the WTO, or to eschew participation in any trade institutions. At SIS, Darden teaches courses in international relations, comparative politics, and the politics of Eurasia. Beyond SIS, Prof. Darden is co-editor of the Cambridge University Press Book Series Problems of International Politics and is actively engaged with Russia and Eurasia though the Bilateral Working Group on US-Russia Relations, PONARS Eurasia, the Valdai Discussion Club, and other forums. His analyses and interviews concerning events in Ukraine have been published in Foreign Affairs, Survival, New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, LeMonde, National Geographic, Russia in Foreign Affairs, the AP and Reuters, and he has been interviewed on CNN, Washington Public Radio’s Kojo Nnamdi Show, Sirius XM radio, CBS, Voice of America, Echo Moscow, and Ukrainian television (Channel 5). His commentary on the US-Russian relationship was recently covered on C-SPAN.

For the Media

To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.

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