About me

I am a political scientist and British Academy International Fellow in the Politics Department at the University of Manchester, where I am also affiliated with the Mitchell Centre for Social Network Analysis. I received my PhD in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

I study comparative politics and political economy. I am particularly interested in how extremely wealthy businesspeople (oligarchs) interact with government officials, institutions, and the public to shape key political and policy outcomes. My research draws on the contemporary experience of Ukraine and other post-communist states and combines the analysis of large-scale administrative and expert data with surveys and survey experiments, in-depth interviews, and social network analysis.

I hold a Master’s degree in Global Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Master’s degree in Political Science from Leiden University, and a Bachelor’s degree in European Studies from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. My research has been supported by the British Academy, the Rotary Foundation, the Institute for Humane Studies, and the Smith Richardson Foundation, among others.

For inquiries, comments, or drafts of working papers, I can be reached at silviya.nitsova@manchester.ac.uk.