Marlene Laruelle
Marlene Laruelle
Research Professor of International Affairs and Political Science, Director of the Illiberalism Studies Program
Research Faculty
Programs: MA European and Eurasian Studies
Contact:
1957 E St. NW, Office #412J
Washington, D.C. 20052
Marlene Laruelle studies the shifting ideological landscapes of Russia, Europe and the United States, with a focus on the rise of illiberal movements and the emergence of postliberal imaginaries, as well as their political and cultural expressions. Trained as a political philosopher, she has spent the past two decades analyzing Russian ideologies and their global outreach. She is the former Director of the Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES).
Political philosophy, ideology, illiberalism, conservatism, nationalism
Area Studies: Russia, Europe, United States, Arctic, Central Asia
Monographs
2025 — Ideology and Meaning-Making under Putin Regime (Stanford: Stanford University Press).
2023 — Russia: Great Power, Weakened State (Lanham, Boulder, New York: Rowman & Littlefield), co-authored with Jean Radvanyi.
2021 — Central Peripheries. Nationhood in Central Asia (London: London University College), available in Open Access.
2021 — Is Russia Fascist? Unraveling Propaganda East and West (Cornell University Press).
2020 — Memory Politics and the Russian Civil War. Reds versus Whites (Bloomsbury, with Margarita Karnysheva).
2018 — Russian Nationalism. Imaginaries, Doctrines and Political Battlefields, London: Routledge.
2018 — Understanding Russia. The Challenges of Transformation, Lanham, Boulder, New York: Rowman & Littlefield, co-authored with Jean Radvanyi.
2014 — Russia’s Arctic Strategies and the Future of the Far North, New York: M.E. Sharpe.
2013 — Globalizing Central Asia. Geopolitics and the Challenges of Economic Development New York: M.E. Sharpe, co-authored with Sebastien Peyrouse.
2012 — The ‘Chinese Question’ in Central Asia. Domestic Order, Social Changes and the Chinese Factor London, New York: Oxford University Press, and Hurst, co-authored with Sebastien Peyrouse.
2009 — In the Name of the Nation. Nationalism and Politics in Contemporary Russia New York: Palgrave/MacMillan.
2008 — Russian Eurasianism. An Ideology of Empire, Washington D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Press/Johns Hopkins University Press, paperback 2011.
Edited Volumes
2024 — Oxford Handbook of Illiberalism (London: Oxford University Press).
2019 — The Nazarbayev Generation. Youth in Kazakhstan (Lanham, MD: Lexington).
2018 — Entangled Far Rights. A Russian-European Intellectual Romance in the 20th century, Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press.
2018 — Tajikistan on the Move. Statebuilding and Societal Transformations. Lanham, MD: Lexington.
2018 — Mass Media in the Post-Soviet World. Market Forces, State Actors, and Political Manipulation in the Informational Environment after Communism. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, with Peter Rollberg.
2018 — Being Muslim in Central Asia: Practices, Politics, and Identities. London and Leiden: Brill.
Journal Articles
2025 — “Social and Discursive Capital as Illiberal Enabler: A Tale of Two Far‐Right Fictions in France,” Politics and Governance, 13, co-authored with Périne Schir.
2025 — “Christian Nationalism as an Illiberal Interpretation of Religion,” Journal of Illiberalism Studies 5, no. 1: 1-12, co-authored with Steven Livingston.
2025 — “Is There a Russian Version of US Christian Nationalism?” Journal of Illiberalism Studies 5, no. 1: 95-102.
2024 — “Russia and China as Service Providers for Illiberal Governance,” World Affairs 187, no. 4, 387-403, co-authored with Erica Marat and Gagan Atreya.
2023 — “Culturalizing the Nation: A Quantitative Approach to the Russkii/Rossiiskii Semantic Space in Russia’s Political Discourse,” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization no. 1: 3-28, co-authored with Ivan Grek, and Sergey Davydov.
2022 — “A Grassroots Conservatism? Taking a fine-grained View of Conservative Attitudes among Russians,” East European Politics 39, no 2: 173-193.
2022 — “Illiberalism. A Conceptual Introduction,” East European Politics 38, no. 2: 303-327.
2022 — “Eric Zemmour, The New Face of the French Far Right: Media-Sponsored, Neoliberal, and Reactionary,” Journal of Illiberalism Studies 2, no. 2: 1-17, co-authored with Périne Schir.
2021 — “A New Wave of Research on Civilizational Politics,” Nationalities Papers, co-authored with Henry Hale.
2020 — "Accusing Russia of Fascism. Polemics around Russia’s Belonging to Europe," Russia in Global Affairs, December.
2020 — “Pandemic Politics in Eurasia: Roadmap for a New Research Subfield,” Problems of Post-Communism 68, no. 1, collective article.
2020 — “Making Sense of Russia’s Illiberalism,” Journal of Democracy 31, no. 3: 115-129.
2020 — “Ideological Complementarity or Competition? The Kremlin, the Church, and the Monarchist Idea in Today's Russia,” Slavic Review 79, no. 2, 345-364.
2020 — “Ideological or Pragmatic? A Data-Driven Analysis of the Russian Presidential Grant Fund,” Russian Politics 5: 29-51, co-authored with Laura Howells.
2020 — "Urban Regimes in Russia’s Northern Cities: Testing a Concept in a New Environment," Arctic 73, no. 1, 53-66.
2019 — “Back From Utopia: How Donbas Fighters Reinvent Themselves in a Post-Novorossiya Russia,” Nationalities Papers 47, no. 5, 719–733.