Sharon Werning Rivera, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Government

Sharon Werning Rivera (Ph.D., University of Michigan) teaches comparative politics, with a focus on the post-communist states of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Her interests include democratization; elite political culture; ideology and politics; and the diffusion of ideas. She is currently working on several projects, one of which is a book manuscript on Russian elites’ attitudes toward democracy and the market under Yeltsin and Putin. Based on two years of research in the Russian Federation, it utilizes two in-depth elite surveys conducted in cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Sociology. She is also collaborating on several projects—a study comparing the characteristics of Russian and Chinese elites with Professor of Government Cheng Li (Hamilton College); an article examining the extent to which the elite sector under Putin has become dominated by individuals from the military and security services (with Gregory Zalasky ’04); and several articles on Putin and Yeltsin with Visiting Assistant Professor of Government David Rivera (Hamilton College). Her research to date has been supported by several institutions, including the Social Science Research Council and the U.S. Department of Education.

She teaches courses in the politics of Russia and the C.I.S., transitions to democracy, and introductory comparative politics. She recently received a Class of 1966 Career Development Award from Hamilton College to develop innovative approaches to teaching the Government Department’s 100-level course in Comparative Government.

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.

Her publications include:

Peer-Reviewed Articles:
“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. Co-authored 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.

In Edited Volumes:
“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). Reprinted in Politicheskie issledovaniya, no. 6 (1995): 61-66 and no. 3 (1996): 156-157.

“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.

Her research in progress includes:
“Markets, Leadership, and Democracy in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Did Clinton Lose Russia?” with David W. Rivera. In revise-and-resubmit status at International Security.

“Westernizers, Slavophiles, and Vladimir Putin: Understanding Policymaking in the Kremlin,” with David W. Rivera. Under review.

“Democratic Consolidation and Elite Political Culture: Russia under Yeltsin and Putin.” Book manuscript.

“Comparative Communist Transitions: The ‘Elite Variable’ in Russia and China,” with Cheng Li.

“Putin’s Russia and the New Societal Elite,” with Gregory Zalasky.

To contact Professor Rivera:
Phone: 315-859-4223
Fax: 315-859-4477
Email: srivera@hamilton.edu

Office Hours: KJ 217C, On leave Fall 2004

Last updated: November 2004