ABOUT

Dr Olga Onuch (DPhil, Oxford), is a Senior Lecturer in Politics [Associate Professor] at the University of Manchester. In 2021 she was visiting CERES at the University of Toronto as a Senior Research Associate. From 2014 to 2020 she was an Associate Member of Nuffield College (Oxford). Since 2017 she has been an Affiliate of, and previously in 2014 a Fellow of, the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute. In 2017 she was a Visiting Fellow at the Davis Center (Harvard). 

She is the winner of the 2017 Political Studies Association National Sir Bernard Crick Award for Outstanding Teaching.  

PROJECTS

I study the Comparative Democratization of Eastern Europe and Latin America. My scholarly work has examined the micro-foundations of citizen responses (vote, protest, and migration) to, and perceptions of, critical junctures in Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, and Venezuela, and Argentina. My policy research has interrogated: EU cultural diplomacy, think-tanks as reform actors (SIDA/OSI), ‘new’ EU members’ role in eastward enlargement (NISS), good government indicators (OECD), democratic dialogue (UNDP), and governance (World Bank).

PUBLICATIONS (selected)

I am the author of more than 20 scholarly publications as well as several large policy reports, briefs, reviews, and popular articles. My scholarly articles have appeared in leading journals in my field (Journal of Democracy, Europe-Asia Studies, Problems of Post-Communism, Post-Soviet Affairs, GeoPolitics among others). My book “Mapping Mass Mobilizations” (2014, has received praise Europe-Asia Studies and was nominated for a prize). 

TEACHING

My teaching has been recognized by the SoSS UoM Leadership as having obtained an outstanding result – as I teach several of the “highest [rated courses] in the School.”  To this end, in 2017 I was awarded the Political Studies Association National Sir Bernard Crick Award for Outstanding Teaching. I was also twice nominated as Most Inspirational Lecturer, by my students.