Sharon Werning Rivera (Ph.D., University of Michigan) specializes in the post-communist region of Eurasia with an emphasis on Russia. Her research and teaching interests in the field of comparative politics include comparative democratization, elite political culture, the transformation of elites in post-communist settings, and the diffusion of ideas. Rivera's articles have appeared or are forthcoming in Perspectives on Politics, Political Studies, Party Politics, Post-Soviet Affairs, PS: Political Science and Politics, Journal of Political Science Education, and Europe-Asia Studies, as well as in edited collections.
She is currently working on several research projects. One is the compilation of an original data base of approximately 3000 individuals prominent in the Brezhnev, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, or Putin eras, which she is using to write a series of articles. One such piece—recently published in Post-Soviet Affairs—reassesses the claim that the elite sector under Putin has become dominated by individuals from the military and security services. Another surveys the extent of elite turnover between the Yeltsin and Putin administrations. A third is a collaborative project investigating the linkage between regime stability and elite turnover in the Soviet/Russian and Chinese cases.
A second larger project is a comparative study of the role of leadership in democratic transitions and consolidation in the post-Soviet region. Its primary data sources include cross-national data on all post-communist states from 1991-present as well as an original survey of Russian political elites conducted in cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Sociology.
She received a Class of 1966 Career Development Award from Hamilton College to develop a simulated election campaign for the Government Department's 100-level course in Comparative Government.
She teaches the following courses:
Gov 112W: Comparative Politics Gov 213: Politics in Russia
Gov 311W: Transitions to Democracy
Gov 550: Senior Project
Russian Studies 100: Introduction to Russia
Professor Rivera was a Mellon-Sawyer Post-Doctoral Fellow in Democratization at Cornell University from 1998-1999 and holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). She has also worked as a consultant on various projects relating to the post-communist region of Eurasia.
"Toward an Accurate Assessment of Elite Militarization," Politicheskie issledovaniya, No. 5 (September 2009). Russian-language abridged version of article in Post-Soviet Affairs. With David W. Rivera.
"Engaging Students as Paraprofessionals through Simulations," Journal of Political Science Education 4, No. 3 (July 2008): 298-316. With Janet Simons.
"The Russian Elite under Putin: Militocratic or Bourgeois?" Post-Soviet Affairs 22, No. 2 (April-June 2006): 125-144. With David W. Rivera.
"Out of the Ivory Tower: Integrating Service-Learning into Russian Studies," AAASS NewsNet 46, No. 2 (March 2006): 15-19.
"Elites and the Diffusion of Foreign Models in Russia," Political Studies 52, No. 1 (March 2004): 43-62.
"Interviewing Political Elites: Lessons from Russia," PS: Political Science and Politics 35, No. 4 (December 2002): 683-88. With Polina Kozyreva and Eduard Sarovskii.
"Elites in Post-Communist Russia: A Changing of the Guard?" Europe-Asia Studies 52, No. 3 (2000): 413-432.
"Historical Cleavages or Transition Mode? Influences on the Emerging Party Systems in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia," Party Politics 2, No. 2 (1996): 177-208.
"Tendentsii formirovaniya sostava post-kommunisticheskoi elity v Rossii: reputatsionnyi analiz" [Trends in the Formation of Russia's Post Communist Elite: A Reputational Analysis], Politicheskie issledovaniya, No. 6 (1995): 61-66. Errata published in "Popravka," Politicheskie issledovaniya, No. 3 (1996): 156-157. Reprinted from Petrov, ed., Novaya elita v Rossii.
On-Line Text:
"Elections in West Europa, Congressional Quarterly Press, 2009. On-line simulation for comparative politics courses. www.cqpress.com/product/WestEuropa.html
Chapters in Edited Volumes
"Unikal'nyi put' Rossii? Obzor politicheskikh elit" ["A Unique Path for Russia? A Survey of Political Elites"], in A. D. Shutov, Uchenye zapiski 2006 (Moscow: Nauchnaya kniga, 2006), pp. 46-59. Publication of the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; abridged version of article in Political Studies.
"Interviewing Political Elites: Lessons from Russia," in David Rochefort, ed., Quantitative Methods in Practice: Readings from PS (Washington, D.C.: CQ Press, 2006). Co-authored with Polina Kozyreva and Eduard Sarovskii. Updated version of article in PS: Political Science and Politics.
"Tendentsii formirovaniya sostava post-kommunisticheskoi elity v Rossii: reputatsionnyi analiz" [Trends in the Formation of Russia's Post Communist Elite: A Reputational Analysis], in I. I. Petrov, ed., Novaya elita v Rossii [New Elites in Russia] (Moscow, 1995).
"The Second Russian Revolution," in Daniel Diller, ed., Russia and the Independent States (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1993).
"Reforming the Soviet System," in Daniel Diller, ed., The Soviet Union, 3rd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly, Inc., 1990).
Book Reviews
Review of Tom Bjorkman, Russia's Road to Deeper Democracy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), in Europe-Asia Studies 56, No. 4 (2004): 625-627.
Review of Eugene Huskey, Presidential Power in Russia (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), in Europe-Asia Studies 52, No. 4 (2000): 759-760.
Review of Baruch Hazan, Gorbachev and His Enemies: The Struggle for Perestroika, in SAIS Review 11, no. 1. (Winter-Spring 1991): 163-164.
Review of Daniel N. Nelson, Elite-Mass Relations in Communist Systems, in SAIS Review 9, no. 2 (Summer-Fall 1989): 276-279.
