Cynthia S. Kaplan

Photo of Professor Kaplan
Professor Emerita

Specialization

Comparative Politics; Identity Politics, Qualitative Methods and Research Design, Surveys,
Subfields: Political Behavior and Public Opinion; Social Mobilization, Democratization
Fieldwork: Russia, Tatarstan, Estonia, Kazakhstan

Ph.D., Columbia University, 1981

Bio

Fall 2023 Office Hours:

All office hours are on zoom.  Send an email to cskaplan@ucsb.edu to request a zoom meeting on Tuesdays from 11:00 AM -12:00 PM or by appointment.

https://ucsb.zoom.us/j/86700941232

Cynthia Kaplan has visited the countries of the former Soviet Union over 72 times with research residencies in Russia, Tatarstan, Kazakhstan and Estonia.  She was a Fulbright Scholar in Estonia during Fall 2005, spent part of the summers of 2006 and 2008 in Kazan, Tatarstan and regularly visits Kazakhstan and Estonia. 

She has participated on the International Research and Exchanges Board’s scholars programs four times, living in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tallinn (Estonia), Novosibirsk, and Kazan, and has served as the director of the UC System-wide Study Center in Moscow.  She co-convenes the Research Focus Group on Identity under the auspices of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UCSB and leads the Politics in Identity Group in the department.   Her survey research in Russia and Estonia has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the U.S. Institute for Peace, and the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies.  In addition to surveys, her research includes the creation of an event data set based on the coding of the Russian and Estonian language press and a discourse analysis of Estonian and Russian language literary journals. She has conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups on identity in Russia, Tatarstan, Estonia, and Kazakhstan and currently serves as the Senior Foreign Consultant on a project studying  youth culture in Kazakhstan..

Professor Kaplan  and Henry E. Brady (UC Berkeley) are authors of Gathering Voices: Political Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press), and is the author of The Party and Agricultural Crisis Management in the USSR (Cornell University Press, 1987).  Her current research focuses on constructivist understandings of identity in Estonia, Tatarstan, and Kazakhstan. 

She has participated on the International Research and Exchanges Board’s scholars programs four times, living in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tallinn (Estonia), Novosibirsk, and Kazan, and has served as the director of the UC System-wide Study Center in Moscow.  She co-convenes the Research Focus Group on Identity under the auspices of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UCSB and leads the Politics in Identity Group in the department.   Her survey research in Russia and Estonia has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the U.S. Institute for Peace, and the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies.  In addition to surveys, her research includes the creation of an event data set based on the coding of the Russian and Estonian language press and a discourse analysis of Estonian and Russian language literary journals. She has conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups on identity in Russia, Tatarstan, Estonia, and Kazakhstan and currently serves as the Senior Foreign Consultant on a project studying youth culture in Kazakhstan..  Her current research focuses on constructivist understandings of identity in Estonia, Tatarstan, and Kazakhstan.

Most recently, Professor Kaplan became part of a new research project led by the Department of Political Science and Technology, Al Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan (www.kaznu.kz/ru/355) and  sponsored by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and Science, “Educational Migration from Kazakhstan:  Tendencies, Factors and Socio-Political Consequences.”  UCSB has an official exchange agreement with Al Farabi Kazakh National University.

Publications

Gathering Voices: Political Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet Union  with Henry Brady (forthcoming, Cambridge University Press)

"Meaning-making of ethnicity in different contexts: Russians in Estonia, Russia and Kazakhstan.”w/ Triin Vihalemm, Approaches to Culture Theory Vol 6, editor Anu Kannike. Tartu, Estonia:  Tartu University Press.  forthcoming.

"Conceptualizing and Measuring Ethnic Identity" (with Henry Brady). In Measuring Identity: A Guide for Social Science Research, edited by Rawi Abdelal, Yoshiko Herrera, Alastair Iain Johnson, and Rose McDermott (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

"The Emergence of Political Agendas: The Independence Movement in Estonia in 1985-1991," in Empire to Nation: Historical Perspectives on the Making of the Modern World (Joseph W. Esherick, Hasan Kayali, and Eric Van Young, eds.). Boulder, Colorado: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2006.

"Subjects to Citizens: From Non-Voting, to Protesting, to Voting in Estonia during the Transition to Democracy" (with Henry E. Brady), Journal of Baltic Studies (Winter, 2001).

"Categorically Wrong? Nominal versus Graded Measures of Ethnic Identity" (with Henry E. Brady), Studies in Comparative International Development (Fall 2000), pp. 56-91.

Courses

Undergraduate

PS 118

Comparative Ethnic Politics

PS 128

Foreign Policy of Russia and the Successor States

PS 143

Politics of the Former Soviet Union and the Successor States

PS 106 and 

PS 196

Undergraduate and Senior Seminars on Democratization, Political Culture, and Muslims in Eurasia

Graduate

PS 230

Comparative Politics

PS 231

Comparative Methods

PS 236

Democratization

PS 237

Social Movements and Collective Action

PS 280A

Politics of the Former Soviet Union and the Successor States

PS 281

Comparative Ethnic Politics