Central & East European, Russian & Eurasian Studies (Erasmus Mundus International Master)

Thesis Topics

The partner university where you spend the second year of the programme is linked to your dissertation research interests and the proposal you submit in year 1.

The Consortium offers a wide range of areas of research interest for supervision.   For your information examples of previous topics undertaken by IMCEERES students are listed below.

Corvinus University of Budapest

• ‘Eastern opening’: Untangling Hungary’s ‘special’ relationship with Russia
• Diverse support of a kin-state towards its minority in another country: Hungary and Serbia
• The populist radical right parties and gender in Hungary
• Cooperation, Conflict and Co-option: The Relationship between the Monarchies of Central and South Eastern Europe and the Far-Right 1918-45
• International Adoption Bans in Romania and Russia: A Case Study on East West Relations
• Patron State Nationalism: The Case of Hungarian Relations with Serbia and the Vojvodina Autonomous Province
• Exploring State Policy Towards Roma Minority in Modern Hungary
• The Continues Presence of Communist Successor Parties in Czech Republic and Hungary
• Unfinished Bridges Between Eastern Europe and Latin America.  Mexico-Romania Cultural Diplomacy and Nation Branding Experiences
• The Role of Russia within BSEC.  Implications to Regional Diplomacy
• Exploring and Explaining Age-Cohort Variations on the Communist Past in the Czech Republic
• Identifying the Relationship Between Corruption Prevention, Integrity and Education in Hungary
• Russia's Foreign Policy in the Asia Pacific: A Neoclassical Realist Approach
• Engines of the Right: A Comparative Examination of Hungarian Right-Wing Party Youth Groups
• Memory, Multiethnicity and Marginality: Post-Socialist Nostalgia in Armenia and Georgia
• The Implementation of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in Slovakia and Serbia: Case Study of Hungarian Minority
• Are the British Left and Right Media Coming Closer because of the European Refugee Crisis and Why? Exploring from the Selected Famous Left and Right Media in the UK
• Encountering Material Memory: Experiences of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 in the National Museum of Hungary and the House of Terror
• Interconnectedness of Nationalism and Authoritarianism: The Role of Nationalism in Regime Legitimation and Power Personalisation in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan and Tajikistan
• Czech Migrant Integration Policy
• Readers' Responses to Mainstream Media Articles about Women as a Reflection of Contemporary Gender Politics in Russia
• Opinion Leaders in Social Media: Who Distributes the Political News Among Ukrainian Twitter Users?
• The Metamorphosis of the Far Right in Hungary: The Case of Jobbik
• Visegrad Four Cooperation During the Migrant Crisis
• Securitisation Spill-over: The Case of Hungarian and Romanian National Minorities in Ukraine after 2014
• Right-wing Populism and Gender Ideology: Case Study of Hungary’s Fidesz and Poland’s PiS
• The Role of the Civil Society Consultations in the Post-2020 EU Roma Framework
• Using Moral Foundations Theory to understand how right-of-centre populist parties communicate with voters in Central and Eastern Europe
• The Influence of a Minister: Turanism in the Hungarian Government

Jagiellonian University

• Democratic Kazakhstan: How has the legislative structure of the Republic of Kazakhstan affected contemporary media freedom
• To which extent new EU member states can affect EU’s Foreign Policy towards Central Asia: cases of Poland and Latvia
• Welcome Madam President: Effects of a female presidential candidate on the mobilisation of young, female voters in Slovakia.
• A qualitative dimension to fractured memory regimes: comparative study of the commemorations of the fall of Communism in Poland in 2009 and 2019
• Measuring Populism in Contemporary Poland
• Transformation of post-Communist urban cultural landscapes: A comparative case study of Warsaw and Kiev
• Visegrád Countries’ Activities in ASEAN from 2010 to 2020 and Their Prospect in the Region: The Cases of Hungary and Poland
• Young Armenian Diasporans in the Fight for Genocide Recognition
• Poland and Russia: image in media and ethno-cultural stereotypes
• 'Queering Security: (in)Securitisation and Resistance of LGBTQ Community in Poland’
• The Cold War and the Peripheral Socialist Modernities: Soviet-Kurdology and Kurdish Emigre Students in the Soviet Union
• The Populist’s Performed Social Movement: Analysis of Volodymyr Zelensky’s 2019 Presidential Campaign
• Kremlin Calling?: An investigation into the geopolitical narratives of selected European radical right parties regarding Russia
• China's Influence on the Quality of Democracy in Georgia
• A Strongman at Home Is a Strongman Abroad? Investigating Operational Codes of Aliaksandr Lukašenka and Donald Trump
• Production and Reproduction of National Di/Visionsin Hungarian Diaspora Politics (2010–2019)
• Europeanization of parliamentary discourse: the Migrant Crisis in the Croatian Sabor and Serbian Narodna
• The Heritagization of the Communist Past: German Museums on the GDR
• Polish Trade Unions in 1970s and 1980s
• Trajectory of Transformation of Communist Successor Parties - Case of Bulgarian Socialist Party
• Out of Time: The Economy, The Scale of Assets and Political Power in Belarus After the 2011 Currency Crisis
• EU Democracy Promotion in Ukraine and Tunisia
• Fight for National Priority in the South Caucasus (nation building, identity, historical memory)
• Crime in Eastern Europe: Lessons from Soviet Times
• Electoral Behaviour of Electoral Minorities in Georgia
• Migrants from Central Asia in Russian Federation
• Cross Border Cooperation across the Schengen Border: Polish, Ukrainian and Belorussian trans-border regions
• The International Dimension of Democratisation: The Impact of the EU and Russian on Ukraine's Political Regime
• Transnational Organised Crime in Russia and Eastern Europe and its Impact Home and Abroad (Bulgaria/Romania)
• Domestic and International Strategies towards combatting organised crime
• The Manipulation of Memory: The Case of Emilia Plater as used by Adam Mickiewicz and Margaret Fuller
• Memory of Forced Migration in Germany and Poland.  Re-imaging History in the Time of European Integration
• Russian Cities in International Relations: Actors or Observers
• Europeanization of German and polish National Foreign Policy: The Case of Bilateral and Trilateral Cooperation
• State, Nation-Building and Integration of Ethnic Minorities: The Case of Georgia
• The Kremlin's New Propaganda and the Ukrainian Crisis
• The Maidan Protest Movement of the November 2013-February 2014 - A Theoretical Model of Analysis
• Same-Sex Partnerships Policy in Poland: The EU Impact
• Small Dependent States and Energy Security Threats: A Case Study on the Republic of Moldova
• Impact of New Member States in the European Union: Case Study of Poland and Youth Policy
• Continued Violence in the North Caucasus: Perspectives from Panski
• Immigration and External Relations: (De)securitisation in the Discourses of the European Parliament
• The Concept of New Eastern Europe
• The Function of the Stalinist Myth: Pro-Stalin Sentiments on the Rise? Memory and Identity in Contemporary Russia
• The Place of Human Rights and Promotion in Third Countries in the Foreign Policy of the EU: The Case of Kazakhstan
• Implementation of International Marketing in Polish Higher Education Institutions: Antecedents of Export Market Responsiveness
• The Social and Economic Impact of the Local Border Traffic Agreement Between Poland and Russia in Warmińsko-Mazurskie Province
• Projecting the Polish Nation: Feelings of Polish Nation-hood Among Pole's Card Holders from Belarus
• Ukraine in the EU's Eastern Partnership Policy 2009-13.  A Case of Czech Foreign Policy Making Analysis
• Russian and US Media Portrayals of the US/NATO Ballistic Missile Defence Shield: Before and After Crimea
• Democratization and Securitization - The Ban of Russian TV Channels in Ukraine
• Euroscepticism and Othering in the EU Migration Crisis 2015/16: Analysing Patterns of Discourse in the European Parliament
• Challenges and Opportunities of Polish Migrants in Scotland and Return Migrants in Poland
• New Parties in Poland's 2011 and 2015 Parliamentary Elections: The Analysis of Contributing Factors to Their Electoral Results
• Conceptual Problems in the Study of Populism: Normativity, Contestability, and Plurality
• The Inherent Dissonance of Heritage in Contemporary Polish Museums
• Recognition of the Russian threat in Poland. From othering to securitisation
• Political Socialization of Immigrants: A Case Study of Estonia
• Memory Politics in Poland under the Law and Justice Party (PiS): Constructing Narratives of Heroism and Victimhood Using a Case Study of Three Polish Museums
• Europeanization as a Source of Frame Resonance. The Case of Georgia’s Shame Movement and 2019 Gavrilov Night Protests
• Analysing the Korean Diaspora: A case study of Koryo-saram and Sakhalin Koreans
• Identity Construction in a Transnational Environment: The Case of Young Ukrainian Migrants in Poland
• Using EU’s External Governance to Promote Good Governance in Eastern Partnership: Evidence from Georgia
• Identity Construction in a Transnational Environment: The Case of Young Ukrainian Migrants in Poland
• Using EU’s External Governance to Promote Good Governance in Eastern Partnership: Evidence from Georgia
• Sovereignism Through the Prism of Populism: The Case of Law and Justice Party
• Negotiating ‘Serbia’ and ‘Europe’ amidst the politics of nationalism and Europeanization: An exploration of identity contestation and utilization within the LGBT movement in Serbia
• Military Signaling & Geopolitical Instability: A CriticalGeopolitics View of the NATO-Russia Exercise Dynamic in the Baltic Sea
• The myth of Crimea: Crimean narrative in Russian and Ukrainian media
• As Above, So Below: Communicating Foundational Myths Through Monuments. A Comparative Study of Pilsudski Square (Warsaw) and Independence Square (Kyiv)
• Compelex Orientalism: Soviet Kurdology

 KIMEP University

• Behind Renaming: State, Minorities and Toponym Changes in Almaty and North Kazakhstan Oblasts since 1991
• Relations between Kazakhstan and China in the oil sector between the years 2014 and 2018
• The essence of Jadidism in Turkestan. In search of anti-colonialism and liberation in the Jadid literature
• Soviet Kazakh identity through the works of Magzhan Zhumabaev and Iliyas Zhansugurov
• Environment and the Place of Corporate Social Responsibility in Kazakhstan
• Revolution or a Civil Coup: An Analysis of the Political Event in Kyrgyzstan in Spring 2010
• Eurasian Union - Motivation of Members to Join
• Border Management in Central Asia - The EU Approach as a Role Model
• Pipelines, Hegemonies and Regionalism in the Caspian: A Neo-Gramscian Appraisal
• Anti-drug Trafficking Initiatives in Central Asia
• Is There An Oil Curse in Kazakhstan and What Can the Country Learn From the Case of Azerbaijan?
• The Environmental Question in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan - The Case of Kumtor
• Between Apathy and Engagement: Understanding Environmental Mobilization Under the Non-Democratic Regime of Kazakhstan
• The Influence of Islam on Ethnic Identity: How the Everyday Practice of Religion Affects the Identity of Kazakh Youths in Almaty
• Language as an Expression of Power: A Study of Soviet Language Policies and Their Impact on Modern Kazakhstan
• Post-Colonialism and Kazakhstan's History Textbooks
• Through Perception and Reality: Kyrgyzstan's Move Towards Russia
• In Search of 'Middlemen' for German Politics in Kazakhstan
• Presidentialism, Energy Sector Ownership, and Autocratic Survival: Comparing Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan between 1991 and 2006
• Presidentialism, Energy Sector Ownership, and Autocratic Survival: Comparing Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan between 1991 and 2006
• Tengrism as a Lived Religion in Kazakhstan and its Role in National Identity Building
• "It's half being queer, and half just wanting to leave:" Queer migration in Kazakhstan
• Exploring the Dynamics Between Non-State Cinema, Audiences, and the Future of the Industry: Contemporary Kazakhstani Independent Arthouse Cinema from the Perspectives of the Filmmakers

Ilia State University

• The Role of Collective Memory in the Georgian-Abkhaz Reconciliation Process: Obstacle or Opportunity?
• Neoclassical Realism: A Theoretical Comparison of the Foreign Policy of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan
• Religious Liberalism: Issues of Religious Minorities in Georgia
• Neoclassical Realism: A Theoretical Comparison of the Foreign Policy of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan
• Toponymy and the issues of memory and identity on the post-Soviet Tbilisi cityscape
• Far Right Nationalism and Anti-Immigrant Sentiment in Georgia
• The implementation of transitional justice – A comparative analysis in Georgia & Armenia
• Contested Names: (Re) Naming of Places and Nation-Building in Soviet Georgia
• The Value in Those You Know. Dimensions of Social Capital in COVID-19 Vaccination Uptake Among Ethnic and Religious Minority Groups in Georgia
• Discourse-historical analysis of Russian officials' statements justifying the 2008 August War and 2022 Russo-Ukrainian War in the context of information warfare.
• The Church and the Virus: Frontiers of Secularization and Political Theology in Contemporary Georgian Orthodoxy

NaUKMA

• The Radical Left in Ukraine since Maidan: The Case of the National Anarchist Movement
• Regional Variation in Civil Society Anti-Corruption Efforts in Ukraine
• Weaponized Memeing: The Online Invocation of Contested Memory about WWII in the Russo-Ukraine War
• Legitimation in De-Facto States: an Analysis of Media in the Pridnestrovian Moldovan Republic