Prof. Hans-Georg HEINRICH

Completed studies in law, political science, and foreign languages. Lecturer at Vienna-based teaching centers affiliated with U.S. universities. Held a chair of political science at the University of Vienna. Visiting professorships and guest lectures in various countries (Russia, Hungary, Poland, Iraq, Egypt, Cambodia). Worked in various field missions and presences of the international organization OSCE (Tbilisi, Chechnya, Belgrade). Co-founder of ICEUR-Vienna and currently its Vice President. Publications on Soviet, Russian, and East European politics in various languages.

2025, February 10, 12
An introduction to political forecasting

Most people are not aware of the fact that they make hundreds of forecasts (or predictions) every day. Every decision is linked to a forecast about its effects. The bad news is that most professional forecasts score no better than coin tosses. Partly, it may be simply impossible to make a meaningful forecast (e.g., stock market prices). Partly, forecasters have the incentive to play down the uncertainty (“noise”) that goes with every forecast. Nevertheless, if one allows for sufficient error margins, one may significantly increase the success rate. This introductory course will focus on ways and means to be less wrong and to develop a sense for the possibilities and limits of forecasting. Bayesian reasoning is proposed as a major approach, because it allows for alternative beliefs and hypotheses and maps the process of forecasting we use in our daily lives.

2025, April, 9
2025, June 11
Workshop, Conclusion

The course offers hands-on skills and practical examples. Participants do not have to master complicated mathematical formulae or calculations. They will be asked to construct forecasts of their own based on the models demonstrated in class. The major item in our tool box is free software for Bayesian networks (GeNIe Modeler – https://BayesFusion.com/Genie). Additionally, the use of such tools as EXCEL or distribution calculators will be recommended and demonstrated. A course syllabus will be supplied in time.
Recommended Literature:
Kit YATES, How to Expect the Unexpected. The Science of Making Smart Predictions; Kindle e-Books, 2023
Nate SIVER, The Signal and the Noise. Why So Many Predictions Fail-And Some Don’t. Kindle e-Books 2015
Gleb PAVLOVSKY, The Russian System. A View From Inside; Kindle e-Books 2015

Senior Research Fellow, Head of the Laboratory for the Analysis of Transformational Processes, New Eurasian Strategies Center (NEST).
A political expert with a background in Russian domestic politics whose 40-year career has spanned the worlds of academic research, politics, and business. Before moving to NEST, he was a visiting researcher at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), Berlin, focused on Russian domestic politics and its impact on foreign policy, on political regime in Russia, elites, and decision making. He is also a consulting fellow at The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), London.
He is the author or editor of numerous publications dealing with analysis of Russia’s political regime, post-Soviet transformation, socioeconomic and political development of Russia’s regions, democratization, federalism, and elections, among other topics. In 2019-2022 he was a senior research fellow at Russian and Eurasian programme, Chatham House, London. In 2013-2021 he was a professor and head at Laboratory for Regional Development Assessment Methods at Higher School of Economics, Moscow. For many years he was scholar in Residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center, where he co-directed the Society and Regions project. He also heads the Center for Political-Geographic Research. Petrov is a member of the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia), and a member of scientific boards of the Journal of Power Institutions in Post-Soviet Societies, ‘Russian Politics’ and ‘Russian Politics & Law’. During 1990–1995, he served as an advisor to the Russian parliament, government, and presidential administration.
His works include the three-volume 1997 Political Almanac of Russia and the annual supplements to it. He is the coauthor and editor of The Dynamics of Russian Politics: Putin’s Reform of Federal-Regional Relations in two volumes (2004, 2005), Irregular Triangle: Interrelations between Authorities, Business and Society in Russian Regions. Moscow: Vsya Rossiya, 2010 [in Russian], Russia in 2020: Scenarios for the Future (2011), and Russia 2025: Scenarios for the Russian Future. Palgrave Macmillan (2013), The State of Russia: What Comes Next (coedited with Maria Lipman). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

The war in Ukraine has both direct and indirect effects on Russian regions. The purchase of cannon fodder and the sharp increase in funding for the military-industrial complex contributed to an increase in the level of well-being in previously depressed regions, and, as a result, a reduction in regional contrasts in living standards. The regions are responsible for both the formation and maintenance of contract military units and the restoration of sponsored administrative units of Ukraine. Front-line regions, such as the Kursk, Bryansk, and Belgorod regions, were directly affected by the war, which rather caused patriotic mobilization than contributed to the growth of anti-war sentiment.

Having moved from the role of a “roving bandit” to a “stationary bandit,” the Kremlin is investing colossal resources (approximately 1/8 of all war expenses) in the occupied Ukrainian regions. And this project is more successful for him than the military one. In this case, several goals are pursued: (1) creating an attractive image of “Russian Ukraine”; (2) transfer of the occupied territories to a regime of self-sufficiency; (3) infrastructure and logistics support for the front, etc. To achieve these goals, both the experience of the integration of Crimea in 2014-2024 and new approaches are used.

Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Salzburg. Receiving his PhD from Michigan State University, he subsequently taught at the University of Pittsburgh from 1994 to 2009. Heinisch's research focuses on comparative politics, the radical right, populism as well as US-European relations. He is the author of over 40 peer-reviewed research articles and more than 50 other academic publications, including 14 books. His research has been published in the Journal of European Political Research, Political Studies, Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics, and many others. His books include Understanding Populist Party Organization (Palgrave 2016); The People and the Nation (Routledge 2019), and Politicizing Islam in Austria (Rutgers' University Press 2024). His research has been funded by grants by the European Union as well as the, the Austrian and Swiss Research Funds. He is the recipient of the National Science Award of the Austrian Parliament (2017), comments frequently on US and Austrian politics in international media, and lectures widely on US politics, most recently at the European Defense Academy in Brussels. He has been a regular visiting lecturer at Renmin University of China in Beijing since 2014.

The Putin regime and Right-wing parties share important such attitudes and objectives as illiberal and nativist policies or the disregard for the rule of law.
The relationship between populist radical right parties and Russia has been well documented in the literature (Shekhovtsov, 2018). Recently, there have been increasing links between Russian actors and far-right activists and politicians in the West. Several populist far-right parties in Europe have also established formal links with Russia. They have parroted the Kremlin's arguments about its war in Ukraine. The same far-right actors portray the Ukrainian president as a corrupt warmonger, while Putin is seen as a shrewd defender of traditional values and national interests. This course will examine the radical right's position on Russia in the context of the war in Ukraine, first by trying to understand radical right-wing populism and then by looking at some specific cases of parties and their position on the war and its protagonists.

MA BA Christoph BILBAN

Researcher and chief teaching officer at the Institute for Peacekeeping and Conflict Management responsible for conflicts in the former Soviet states.
Research work and lectures on conflicts in the post-Soviet space with a focus on the conflict in and around Ukraine, on Russian military theory, and on Russian foreign and security policy.

2025, April 30
The EU and the war in Ukraine

The EU's support is crucial for Ukraine's war efforts, as it's not just money and weapons, but training soldiers as well as technical support with domestic reforms. The war, however, also influenced the development of the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) and broadened the portfolio of missions. In this lesson, we will look into how the war in Ukraine changed EU's CSDP.

Mikhail (Mykhailo) Minakov, D. Habil.
Senior Advisor, Kennan Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Editor-in-chief of Kennan Focus Ukraine, of the Ideology and Politics Journal, and of the Koinè Almanac
Professor, The Free University
His recent books:
From Servant to Leader. Chronicles of Ukraine under the Zelensky Presidency, 2019–2024
(Stuttgart: ibidem Verlag, forthcoming in 2025)
The Post-Soviet Human. Philosophical Reflections on Post-Soviet History

• in Ukrainian [Kyiv: Laurus — Milano: Kοινὴ, 2024];
• in Russian [Riga: School for Civic Education, 2024];
• in English [Stuttgart: ibidem Verlag, 2024]

Philosophy Unchained. Developments in Post-Soviet Philosophical Thought (ed. by M. Minakov)
(Stuttgart: ibidem Verlag, 2023)
Inventing Majorities. Ideological Creativity in Post-Soviet Societies (ed. by M. Minakov)
(Stuttgart: ibidem Verlag, 2022)

Ukraine is an example of radical changes in population structure and numbers in ahistorically short period of time. The loss of about 40 percent of the population and 20percent of the territory during the 11 war years created new — demographic and biopolitical— conditions for the continuation of defense during the war and the country's developmentin the postwar period. All forecasts of the development of Ukraine's political, economic, andsecurity situation will have to consider the new demographic reality. What are the structuresof this reality? How exactly will it influence post-war development? These questions will beanswered in the proposed report.

After Euromaidan and with the outbreak of the Donbas War, the Ukrainian party systemchanged several times. The Russian invasion of 2022 has minimized the internal politicalstruggle. Party organizations either disappeared or simplified to leadership groups for oneelectoral cycle. The rotation of power elites and the real political struggle is between newclans and patronage networks. The end of the ongoing war will nevertheless lead to theresumption of electoral cycles and the creation of new parties representing the publicsurface of the clans. Which parties might emerge? Who of their current politicians andmilitary officers can become political leaders? These questions will be answered in theproposed report.

He is a Polish sociologist, political scientist and politician. Professor of the University of Warsaw, Chairman of the European School of Law and Administration rector of a private tertiary education institution in Warsaw. Member of the Polish United Workers Party, he supported the party's line in communist-era Poland. In post-communist Poland, member of the leftist parties (Democratic Left Alliance), deputy to Polish parliament (Sejm) from 1991 to 1997. Minister of National Education 1996–1997. Received the Commander's Cross with Star of the Polonia Restituta order in 1996.

The Russian aggression against Ukraine has its roots in Russian domestic politics – the need to consolidate the legitimacy of Putin’s rule, based on political successes, at home and abroad. The special character of the war results from its internationalization, due to the assistance offered Ukraine by the United States and its allies. Perspectives of the war depend on the psychological processes taking place on both sides. The Russian willingness to continue the war and the Ukrainian determination to oppose the aggression may be seriously affected by the changes in the policy of the Western powers, particularly of the United States. If no change occurs, there is a possibility of the war resulting in another “frozen conflict” in Europe.

As a result of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine and ongoing political and hybrid activities from various actors, the overall security environment in and around Europe is currently undergoing a tectonic shift. What are the regional and global implications and how can the European Union and its member states (in particular Austria) best cope with these geopolitical challenges and defend a rules-based international order?

Dr. Elisabeth Schimpfössl is associate professor in Sociology at Aston University and visiting senior fellow at the LSE’s International Inequalities Institute. Her monograph Rich Russians: From Oligarchs to Bourgeoisie, published in 2018 by Oxford University Press, appeared in an updated version in Russian in October 2022 with Individuum Publishing. Her ongoing research into wealth inequality and wealth concentration is currently dealing with the West’s wartime policies toward Russian oligarch money as well as business and politics in the UK.

Western policymakers have pursued a double-faced approach to sanctioning Russian oligarchs. A presentable degree of sanctioning measures has enabled Western governments and the EU to demonstrate conscientious and resolute actions. Such public performances have deflected from inconsistencies, exemptions, and non-enforcement of implemented sanctions. This lecture will dissect selected cases representative of the various approaches taken.

Cancellations of big money don’t normally last. The rehabilitation of Russian oligarchs poses critical questions: What will it take for them to regain access to Western markets and for economic relations to return to the status quo? Arbitrary decisions, motivated by convenience and political favouritism of specific business interests, rely on opaque procedures and limited public scrutiny. This, in turn, risks having serious implications for democracy and political economy in the West.

Dr. John Lough is a geopolitical expert with a background in Russia and Eastern Europe whose 35-year career has spanned the worlds of business, diplomacy, and research. He is an Associate Fellow of the Russia & Eurasia Programme at Chatham House (since 2009) and is a regular commentator on Russian and Ukrainian affairs. He spent three years with Highgate (2021-2024), a leading London-based strategy consulting firm, and was a partner in the company before moving to the New Eurasian Strategies Centre, a recently established think tank focused on the future of Russia. He ran his own consultancy business for five years advising clients on political and investment risk in Russia, Ukraine, and other countries of the former Soviet Union. From 2008 to 2016, he ran the Russia/CIS practice of BGR Gabara, a public affairs consultancy. From 2003 to 2008, he was an international affairs adviser at TNK-BP, Russia’s third-largest oil company at the time. He spent six years with NATO managing information programmes aimed at Central and Eastern Europe, including a posting to Moscow where he set up NATO’s Information Office in Russia. He was the first Alliance official to be permanently based in Russia (1995-1998). During this time, he developed media and public affairs programmes designed to contribute to better understanding of NATO and its policies in Russian society and was NATO’s spokesman in Russia. Before joining NATO, he was a senior lecturer at the Soviet Studies (later Conflict Studies) Research Centre in the UK, writing on a wide range of defence, security, and foreign policy issues related to the former Soviet Union. He studied German and Russian literature at Cambridge University. He is the author of Germany’s Russia Problem (Manchester University Press 2021).

His lectures will consider the consequences of the war for the security of Ukraine and Europe as a whole and whether there is a route to a sustainable peace. The war was a result in part of the assessment in the Kremlin that Ukraine could be rapidly defeated and forced to accept Russia’s peace terms because its western partners lacked both the capacity and the will to provide it with serious military support. In the event, the Russian army proved less competent than expected, the Ukrainian army more competent while the West turned out to be more resilient and determined than the Kremlin expected. What next? Peace, war, or something in between?