Portrait of Dr Irina Petrova

Dr Irina Petrova

Senior Postdoctoral Researcher with oversight of ‘Research Integration’ (WP2) and ‘Dissemination’ (WP5)

About

Project Role: leads on major funding and publication initiatives; contributes to the project’s conceptual and empirical development including in the form of major academic and policy outputs, and conference/workshop organisation; deputises the PI at Kent (in her absence).

Irina Petrova is a Lecturer in the Politics of Eurasia at the School of Slavonic & East European Studies, SSEES (UCL) and a Post-Doctoral Research Associate at the GCRF COMPASS project at the School of Politics and International Relations (University of Kent). She joined the School in 2019 after completing her doctoral dissertation at KU Leuven. Irina’s research interests focus on the interaction of external and internal actors in international relations, particularly, the development of the novel approach of resilience-based governance anchored in local preferences and perceptions. Geographically, research focuses on the European Union, Russia, Eastern Partnership and Central Asian states.

Prior to joining Kent, Irina worked as a teaching assistant at KU Leuven and adjunct lecturer at Vesalius College (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). She was also a research associate for the H-2020 UPTAKE project (2017-18) and Jean Monnet Network ‘Crisis, Conflict and Critical Diplomacy: EU Perceptions in Ukraine and Israel/Palestine (C3EU)’.

Irina has published on resilience and local ownership, regional competition between the European Union and Russia, and Eastern Partnership policy:

Peer-reviewed publications in English:

  • ‘Societal fragilities and resilience: The emergence of peoplehood in Belarus’ (with E. Korosteleva) online ahead of print (2020). Journal of Eurasian Studies, online ahead of print (2020). https://doi.org/10.1177/18793665211037835
  • ‘Two monologues don’t make a dialogue: EU’s and Russia’s strategic narratives about the Minsk Agreements and sanctions regime’, In: Bossuyt F. and Van Elsuwege P. (eds.) Principled Pragmatism in Practice: The EU’s Policy towards Russia after Crimea. Brill (2021). DOI:10.1163/9789004453715_005
  • ‘From ‘the global’ to ‘the local’: the future of ‘cooperative orders’ in Central Eurasia in times of complexity’ (with E. Korosteleva) International Politics, online ahead of print (2020).  DOI: 10.1057/s41311-020-00262-4
  • ‘The turn towards resilience and local ownership in the EU’s external governance in its neighbourhood: A sense of déjà vu?’ (with L. Delcour) Contemporary Security Policy, 2019, 42(2):336-360. DOI: 10.1080/13523260.2019.1678280
  • ‘Exploring blind spots of regional dynamics in the post-Soviet space: What role for the inter-parliamentary cooperation in the region?’ In: Raube, , Wouters, J., Müftüler-Bac, M. (eds.) Parliamentary Cooperation and Diplomacy in EU external relations. United Kingdom: Edward Elgar (2019). DOI:https://doi.org/10.4337/9781786438850.00036
  • ‘Perceptions of the European Union power in the Eastern Partnership region: the case of Armenia’ (with A. Ayvazyan) European Foreign Affairs Review, 2018, 23(3), 61–78.
  • ‘EU-Russia relations in the Wider Europe: From strategic partner to major competitor?’ In: Gstöhl (Ed.) The European Neighbourhood Policy in a Comparative Perspective: Models, Challenges, Lessons, Routledge (2016), 147-162.
  • ‘Euronest: What Drives Inter-Parliamentary Cooperation in the Eastern Partnership?’ (with K. Raube) European Foreign Affairs Review, 2016, 21 (1), 35-55.
  • ‘The European Union, the eastern neighbourhood and Russia: Competing regionalisms’ (with S. Keukeleire) In: Telò (Eds.) European Union and New Regionalism. Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2014, 263-277.
  • ‘The European Union neighbourhood: Challenges and opportunities’, ed, by T. (Ashgate, 2013). European Foreign Affairs Review, 2013, 4 (1), 585-587.

Policy reports:

  • ‘Eastern Partnership 3.0: New trends and the role for the region’, In: Turarbekova, R. (ed.) The Eurasian network of regional initiatives and organisations. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2020, 37-41.
  • ‘China as an emerging actor in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood’ In: Burnay , Raube K., Wouters J. (eds.) China’s Foreign Policy and External Relations. European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee (Chapter 4). 2015, 40-46.
  • ‘EU-Russia relations in comparison to the Eastern Partnership’, Towards a New Order: foreign policy tools of the EU and how to reshape them. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 2012.

Blog contributions:

Peer-reviewed publications in Russian:

  • ‘Восприятие внешней политики ЕС в Армении: Роль ЕС как глобального актора [Perceptions of the European Union in Armenia: EU as a global actor]. (with A. Ayvazyan) World Economy and International Relations, 2018, 62:4, 110-121. DOI: 10.20542/0131-2227-2018-62-4-91-102 
  • ‘К вопросу об изучении образа международного актора в международных отношениях: внешней образ России и Европейского Союза в странах Восточного Партнерства’ [Studying an image of an international actor: Perceptions of Russia and the European Union in the Eastern Partnership states]. Russia in the age of political and cultural transformations. Bryansk, 2016, 155-164.
  • ‘Разные партнеры, различные энергоидентичности: дискурс–анализ в рамках конструктивизма как путь к объяснению поляризации энергоотношений между РФ и ЕС [Different Partners, divergent energy identities: explaining the polarization of energy relations between Russia and the EU by means of a discourse analysis within a constructivist approach] (with N. Smeets) In: Chuvychkina (Eds.) Экспортные нефте- и газопроводы на постсоветском пространстве: анализ трубопроводной политики в свете теории международных отношений [Oil and gas pipelines in the Post-Soviet Space: analysis of pipeline politics in light of international relations theory], Chapt. 1. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag, 2015, 1-24.
Last updated 13th September 2021