Volha Charnysh
Ford Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science
Legacies of violence; political economy; political behavior; Eastern Europe; Holocaust; WWII; ethnic politics; authoritarianism; politics and history; migration.
Biography
Volha Charnysh is the Ford Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She studies the role of identity in state-building and economic development and the long-term effects of violence. Volha's regional focus is Europe and Eurasia.
Her book, “Uprooted: How post-WWII Population Transfers Remade Europe” (under contract, Cambridge University Press) examines the enduring consequences of mass displacement and resulting cultural heterogeneity on social cohesion, state-building, and economic development in Poland and West Germany. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, British Journal of Political Science, World Politics, and European Journal of International Relations. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Historical Political Economy (JHPE) and Broadstreet Blog.
Volha received her PhD in Government from Harvard University in 2017. She has held fellowships at Princeton Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, Amsterdam Centre for European Studies, and Stanford University (W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellowship at the Hoover Institution).
Publications
Charnysh, V. and S. Riaz. 2023. “After Genocide: Proximity to Victims and Support for Punishing Ingroup Crimes,” Comparative Political Studies.
Charnysh, V., S. Gehlbach, and E. Finkel. 2023. “Historical Political Economy: Past, Present, and Future.” Annual Review of Political Science, 26: 1-17.
Charnysh, V. 2022. "Explaining out-group bias in weak states: religion and legibility in the 1891/92 Russian famine." World Politics, 74 (2): 205-248.
Charnysh, V., L. Peisakhin. 2021. "The Role of Communities in the Transmission of Political Values." The British Journal of Political Science 52 (1): 238-58.
Charnysh, V. 2019. “Diversity, Institutions, and Economic Development: Post-WWII Displacement in Poland.” American Political Science Review, 113 (12): 423-441.
Charnysh, V., E. Finkel. 2017. "The Death Camp Eldorado: Political and Economic Effects of Mass Violence." American Political Science Review 111 (4): 801-818.
Charnysh, V., S. Markus. 2017. "The Flexible Few: Oligarchs and Wealth Defense in Developing Democracies." Comparative Political Studies 50 (12): 1632–1665
A complete list of Volha's research can be found here.
Teaching
17.506. Ethnic Politics
17.591. Research Seminar in Applied International Studies
17.850. Scope and Methods (co-taught)
17.S951 Historical Political Economy (Link to Stellar)
News
Biography
Volha Charnysh is the Ford Career Development Associate Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She studies the role of identity in state-building and economic development and the long-term effects of violence. Volha's regional focus is Europe and Eurasia.
Her book, “Uprooted: How post-WWII Population Transfers Remade Europe” (under contract, Cambridge University Press) examines the enduring consequences of mass displacement and resulting cultural heterogeneity on social cohesion, state-building, and economic development in Poland and West Germany. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, British Journal of Political Science, World Politics, and European Journal of International Relations. She serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Historical Political Economy (JHPE) and Broadstreet Blog.
Volha received her PhD in Government from Harvard University in 2017. She has held fellowships at Princeton Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, Amsterdam Centre for European Studies, and Stanford University (W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo-Campbell National Fellowship at the Hoover Institution).
Publications
Charnysh, V. and S. Riaz. 2023. “After Genocide: Proximity to Victims and Support for Punishing Ingroup Crimes,” Comparative Political Studies.
Charnysh, V., S. Gehlbach, and E. Finkel. 2023. “Historical Political Economy: Past, Present, and Future.” Annual Review of Political Science, 26: 1-17.
Charnysh, V. 2022. "Explaining out-group bias in weak states: religion and legibility in the 1891/92 Russian famine." World Politics, 74 (2): 205-248.
Charnysh, V., L. Peisakhin. 2021. "The Role of Communities in the Transmission of Political Values." The British Journal of Political Science 52 (1): 238-58.
Charnysh, V. 2019. “Diversity, Institutions, and Economic Development: Post-WWII Displacement in Poland.” American Political Science Review, 113 (12): 423-441.
Charnysh, V., E. Finkel. 2017. "The Death Camp Eldorado: Political and Economic Effects of Mass Violence." American Political Science Review 111 (4): 801-818.
Charnysh, V., S. Markus. 2017. "The Flexible Few: Oligarchs and Wealth Defense in Developing Democracies." Comparative Political Studies 50 (12): 1632–1665
A complete list of Volha's research can be found here.
Teaching
17.506. Ethnic Politics
17.591. Research Seminar in Applied International Studies
17.850. Scope and Methods (co-taught)
17.S951 Historical Political Economy (Link to Stellar)