MSCA PF Fellow: Polina Zavershinskaia

Polina Zavershinskaia holds a PhD in Political Science from Leipzig University. During her PhD, she also served as an adjunct professor at the Institute of Political Science at Leipzig University and the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Trento, and is currently a research fellow in the Department of Political Science, Law, and International Studies (SPGI) at the University of Padova. Her research encompasses political violence, backlash, and political narration. She will conduct her MSCA project, VIRUS, at SPGI under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Matteo Bassoli, analysing the narrative rationale for violence during the Russian invasion of Ukraine by Russian illiberal actors and their counterparts in Italy, Germany, and Austria, and the causal relationship between such narratives and the escalation of violence.