Citizenship | Istoria 2025
Date and time:
Tuesday 2 December, 2025
18:30 - 20:00
Location:
ONLINE
Focus themes: Belonging and rights.
Description:
The seminar will explore how the institution of citizenship has developed in Ukraine from the late Soviet period to the present day, and how it has shaped the trajectories of state- and nation-building.
When new states emerge suddenly from the collapse of multinational empires, national and state borders are often incongruent, and the former imperial centre may seek to reassert its dominance. Under such conditions, citizenship policy-making and the specific rules governing citizenship can play a crucial role in strengthening—or weakening—national identity and sovereign statehood.
This seminar will examine these dynamics through the example of Ukraine, where citizenship rules—particularly those concerning dual citizenship—have generated both domestic debate and tensions in relations with Russia. As Ukraine has resisted Russia’s persistent attempts to use citizenship as a tool to foster political integration, the politics of citizenship policy in Ukraine, and within Ukraine–Russia bilateral relations, provide valuable insights into the broader causes of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine.
Lecturer: Dr Oxana Shevel, Tufts University.
Lecturer
Dr Oxana Shevel, Tufts University.
Oxana Shevel is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University and Director of the Tufts International Relations Programme. Her research and teaching focus on the post-communist region—particularly Ukraine and Russia—and topics such as nation-building, identity, citizenship and memory politics, church–state relations, and democratisation processes.
She is co-author with Maria Popova of Russia and Ukraine: Entangled Histories, Diverging States (Polity, 2024), a study of the root causes of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Her earlier book, Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Postcommunist Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2011), received the American Association for Ukrainian Studies (AAUS) prize for the best book in Ukrainian history, politics, language, literature, and culture.
Professor Shevel currently serves as Vice President and President-Elect of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), and as Vice President of the Association for the Study of Nationalities (ASN).
