Marie Mendras is a political scientist in the field of Russian studies and international relations. She is a research fellow with the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and Sciences Po’s Centre for International Research (CERI), and a professor at Sciences Po’s Paris School of International Affairs. She has published extensively on Russia-West relations, as well as on the Russian political system, elite behavior, elections and society, in French and in English.

In 2020, Dr. Mendras is studying the aggravated political and social crises in Russia and Belarus, the mismanagement of covid-19, the fabricated “plebiscites” for the sake of lifetime autocrats, with remarkable consequences: civic revolution in Belarus, protest in Russian cities, crackdown on opponents that lead to more western sanctions against ruling elites. The terms of the debate in Europe about common security are changing and including Eastern neighbours (Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia).

In 2019, Dr. Mendras was a visiting scholar at Hong Kong Baptist University, Government and International Studies Department. In 2016-2017, she joined the Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, as expert. In 2015-2016, she was a senior fellow at the Transatlantic Academy in D.C., and an associate scholar at Georgetown University’s Center for German and European Studies. In earlier years, she taught at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Université Paris 1 Sorbonne, and MGIMO in Moscow.

Marie Mendras provides expertise to the European institutions and think tanks, and has served as consultant for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Ministry of Defense. She is specialist of elections and political representation, and has observed key votes in Russia and Ukraine. Dr. Mendras was educated at Essex University in the U.K. Sciences Po and Institut des Langues et Civilisations Orientales in Paris, SAIS-Johns Hopkins Bologna Center, and the Russian Research Center at Harvard University. She holds a doctorate in political science from Sciences Po.

Since the summer of 2020, I have published on Covid-19 in Russia, the issue of elections held under lockdown, fraudulent «plebiscites» in Russia and Belarus, and political revolution in Belarus.

The Belorussian War will Not Take Place

September 2020

France’s Late Awakening:Security and Good Governance in Europe Are Not Putin’s Goal
Zentrum Liberale Moderne 9 September 2020