Elia BESCOTTI

I am a PhD Student of Political Science at Université Libre de Bruxelles under the supervision of Prof. Aude Merlin, and Associated Doctoral Student at the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies (GS-OSES) at the University of Regensburg. My doctoral research focuses on international legal discourse, ontological security, and identity-building in conflicts of secession in the post-Soviet space, with a focus on the Georgian-Abkhaz context and the Transnistrian settlement. In my career, I worked as a Research Associate at the Leibniz Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) in Regensburg, from 2019 until 2022. I also was a Recognised Student at Russian and East European Studies, University of Oxford, during January-June 2023, with the financial support of the Wiener-Anspach Foundation. I was also a DAAD fellow at IOS during October 2018-March 2019.

Research interest

International relations, peace and conflict studies, critical security studies, discourse analysis, theories of recognition, ontological security, theories of sovereignty and statehood, secession, geopolitics, Area Studies: Eastern Europe and Eurasia.
 

Languages

Italian, English, Russian, German, French

Selected publications
 

• Passportization: Russia’s “humanitarian” tool for foreign policy, extra-territorial governance, and military intervention (with Burkhardt, Fabian, Rabinovych, Maryna; Wittke, Cindy). In VerfaßungsBlog, 23/03/22, https://verfassungsblog.de/passportization/, DOI: 10.17176/20220323-121238-0.

• Passportization, Diminished Citizenship Rights, and the Donbas Vote in Russia’s 2021 Duma Elections (with Burkhardt, Fabian; Wittke, Cindy; Rabinovych, Maryna). In TCUP Report; Temerty Contemporary Ukraine Program Ukrainian Research Institute Harvard University 2022, https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/handle/document/76864

• Die Rolle Transnistriens im Diskurs des Präsidentschaftswahlkampfs in der Republik Moldau. In Russland-Analysen, № 394, 2020, 20/11/2020, https://www.laender-analysen.de/russland-analysen/394/transnistrien-und-praesidentschaftswahlkampf-in-moldau/, DOI: 10.31205/RA.394.02

• A Non-Resolution Limbo: Better Status Quo than Settled? Georgian Territorial Integrity, Russian Security Interests, and the Status of De Facto States in the Peace Process, in Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg / IFSH (Hrsg.), OSCE Yearbook 2019, pp.151 - 162, DOI: 10.5771/9783748906421-151

• Oltre l'Impero. La politica mediterranea dell'Italia fascista. ("Beyond the Empire. The Mediterranean Policy of Fascist Italy"), in Eurasia. Rivista di Studi Geopolitici, 52, 4, 2018, pp. 23-44.