Biographical Statement

Katarzyna (Kasia) Kaczmarska joined the School of Social and Political Science in 2019 from Aberystwyth University where she was a Marie Curie Fellow in the Department of International Politics. Her individual research project enquired into the links between academic knowledge about international relations and expert advice on foreign policy in Russia. Within the project’s framework, she spent two years conducting fieldwork in Moscow and St Petersburg. In Russia, she was affiliated with St Petersburg State University. She guest-lectured at the Higher School of Economics in St Petersburg, taught at Aberystwyth University and the OSCE Academy in Bishkek.  

Kasia’s research interests centre on knowledge construction among scholars and practitioners of international politics and the ways in which the socio-political context influences academic knowledge-making and use. She is a keen observer of the post-Soviet region with special reference to Russia's domestic politics and its relations with the world.

Kasia is a member of the European Coordinating Committee for Academic Freedom Advocacy and the Academic Freedom and Internationalisation Working Group. She convenes the British International Studies Association's (BISA) Interpretivism in IR Working Group and is on the Global Epistemics book series Editorial Board. Kasia is also a member of the Centre for Global Knowledge Studies (gloknos).

Kasia teaches International Relations theory and Russia's foreign and security policy.

You can follow Kasia on Academia.edu and on Twitter.

Qualifications

• PhD in International Studies
• MSc in Development Studies with special reference to Central Asia
• MA in International Relations

Selected publications

Books

2020         Making Global Knowledge in Local Contexts: The Politics of International Relations and Policy Advice in Russia, Routledge https://www.routledge.com/Making-Global-Knowledge-in-Local-Contexts-The-Politics-of-International/Kaczmarska/p/book/9780367186432

Peer-reviewed journal articles

2019         Academic community and policymaking in Russia: impact or detachment?, Problems of Post-Communism, Vol. 66(4), pp. 240-252.

2019         Reification in International Relations: The process and consequences of reifying the idea of international society, International Studies Review, Vol. 21(3),  pp.347–372.

2017         Conservative Soft Power: Liberal soft power bias and the ‘hidden’ attraction of Russia, Journal of International Relations and Development, Vol. 22(1), pp.1-27, with Vincent Keating.

2016         ‘But in Asia we, too, are Europeans’: Russia’s multifaceted engagement with the standard of civilisation, International Relations, Vol. 30(4), pp. 432-455.

2015         Russia’s droit de regard: pluralist norms and the sphere of influence, Global Discourse, Vol. 5(3), pp. 434-448.

Chapters in edited volumes

2020        Academic freedom in Russia, In Researching academic freedom: guidelines and sample case studies, Kinzelbach (ed.), FAU University Press, pp. 103-140. The volume can be downloaded free of charge here.

2020         Theory, ideology and IR’s quest for scientific credibility, In Theory as ideology in international relations: the politics of knowledge, Martill, Schindler (eds.), Routledge, pp. 51-71.

2017         International Society encounters the Russian World: the role of representations in International Relations, In The Anarchical Society at 40: contemporary challenges and prospects, Suganami, Carr, Humphreys (eds.), Oxford University Press, pp. 270-285.

2016         International community as a powerful political myth, In Myths and narratives in international politics: an interpretative approach to studying international relations, Bliesemann de Guevara (ed.), Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 209-228.

2014         Questioning regional international society in Central Asia, In Regions In International Society. The English School at the Sub-Global Level, Karmazin et al., Masaryk University Press

2011         Security Assistance and Border Management, In The European Union and Central Asia, Warkotsch (ed.), Routledge (with John Heathershaw).

Entry for Encyclopedia

2017         International Society, In Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of International Studies, Oxford University Press and the International Studies Association.

Media and opinion pieces

13 September 2020 'Russia’s limits on critical thinking are hitting its academic performance', Times Higher Education, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/russias-limits-critical-thinking-are-hitting-its-academic-performance    

8 January 2020 'Russian ‘foreign agent’ rules are chilling academic freedom', Times Higher Education, 
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/russian-foreign-agent-rules-are-chilling-academic-freedom

21 June 2018 ‘Hard to believe, but we belong here: scholars reflect on impostor syndrome’, Times Higher Education, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/hard-to-believe-but-we-belong-here-scholars-reflect-on-impostor-syndrome  (multiple authors)

15 March 2018 ‘For Russians, ethics committees are just another form of stultifying bureaucracy’, Times Higher Education, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/russians-ethics-committees-are-just-another-form-stultifying-bureaucracy

4 April 2018 ‘Russia's influence is much more than propaganda and fake news’, Euronews, http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/04/russia-s-influence-is-much-more-than-propaganda-and-fake-news-view

22 June 2017 ‘Feared for all the wrong reasons? The workings of Russia’s conservative soft power’, Open Democracy Russia, https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/katarzyna-kaczmarska-vincent-keating/feared-for-all-wrong-reasons-workings-of-russia-s-con

14 August 2014 ‘The thin red line between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’, Open Democracy Russia,
https://www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/katarzyna-kaczmarska/thin-red-line-between-kyrgyzstan-and-tajikistan

Topics interested in supervising

I am interested in supervising PhD projects in the sociology of IR knowledge, academic freedom, the broad field of IR beyond the West and Global IR as well as in any area of post-Soviet politics, particularly topics related to Russia.

If you are interested in being supervised by Katarzyna (Kasia) Kaczmarska, please see the links below for more information: