Staff Profiles

Modules taught

 Undergraduate

• POLI5005 Dilemmas of Governing: Russia and East Europe After Lenin
• POLI5008 Researching Politics and International Relations 2: Methods
• POLI6008 State and Society in Contemporary Russia

Module Leader for:

• Independent Study Module
• Dissertation in Politics
• Interdisciplinary Dissertation in Politics
• Dissertation in International Relations
• Interdisciplinary Dissertation in International Relations
• Dissertation in Politics and International Relations
• Current Issues in Politics and International Relations

 

Supervision

Potential Research Students

Sarah is currently supervising three PhD students as Director of Studies: Carl Mohr, Huw Houssemayne du Boulay and Sofya Omarova. She interested in supervising PhD research on aspects of post-Soviet politics, particularly with regard to state-building, the development of institutions and governance.

PhD Completions: 

• Jasmin D'allagnola, PhD 2021, The impact of globalization on national identities in
  post-Soviet societies (Director of Studies)
• Rico Isaacs, PhD 2009, Between Informal and Formal Politics: Neopatrimonialism and Party Development in Kazakhstan (Director of Studies) 
• John Crabtree, PhD 2008, The Peruvian Party System, 1980-2007 (Second supervisor)

Sarah's research focuses upon post-Soviet politics and she is interested in the evolution of formal institutions, their significance in structuring and reproducing power in post-Soviet states, their relationship with informal practices and the implications this has for the political system. Her empirical focus is predominantly on Ukraine and Russia. Her current British Academy funded research project together with Professor Bettina Renz at the University of Nottingham is investigating the importance of the political and strategic context for military reform in Ukraine. She has given briefings to the FCO and the US Department of State on Ukrainian politics, as well as giving regular media interviews.

Research group membership

State and Society Research Group

Research grants and awards

 

• British Academy SRG19/190038 (co-investigator with Prof. B. Renz, University of Nottingham), 'What kind of military does Ukraine want and need? Assessing the importance of strategic and political context for military reforms' (£9,984)
• ESRC Research Grant (No. RES000221132) Project: Parliamentary Oversight in Ukraine and Russia, principal applicant, 1 April 2005-31 December 2007 (£36,880.00).
• British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, July 2002, awarded but declined in conjunction with obtaining a permanent academic post
• ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship No.T026271291, 1 November 2002 - 31 October 2003 (£27,227.42)
• ESRC Research Studentship No. R00429834861, 1 October 1998 - 31 August 2001.

Books

• Whitmore S, State-Building in Ukraine: The Ukrainian parliament, 1990-2003, Routledge (2004)
  ISBN: 9780415651929 eISBN: 9781134321483
  Abstract

  This book examines the development of the Ukrainian parliament - the Verkhovna Rada - from before Ukraine's independence in 1991 to the present. It shows how the parliament transformed itself from a provincial republican Soviet to the national legislature of a sovereign state and from a nominal, symbolic body to a genuine legislative and representative institution. It discusses the key role of parliament in the wider state-building process and examines the evolution of political factions and the committee system in the parliament.--Provided by publisher.
  

  Website 

Journal articles

• Isaacs R, Wheatley J, Whitmore S, 'Culture Wars in the Post-Soviet Space'
  Europe-Asia Studies 73 (8) (2021) pp.1407-1417
  ISSN: 0966-8136 eISSN: 1465-3427
  Abstract

  In the last decade the term culture war has become hard to avoid. If it is not yet the buzzword of the first part of the twenty-first century, it soon will be. Culture wars seem to be around us everywhere. Each passing week brings some new mention of an outbreak in a public institution, civic space or political arena in some part of the globe. Culture wars are the phenomenon we cannot seem to shake. Battle lines are drawn, rhetorical tools are sharpened and social media awash with vitriol and moralising, and seemingly unbridgeable social gaps. If the immediate post-Cold War period did usher in an era of universal global liberalism, decades on it is now far in the distance, only visible in the rear-view mirror. Instead, around us lie social and political fault lines featuring competing visions of what should be the appropriate normative basis upon which societies should be constituted. They are debates that focus on belonging, on citizenship, on rights and identities.
  

  Website 
• Whitmore S, 'Performing Protest and Representation? Exploring Citizens' Perceptions of Parliament in Ukraine'
  East European Politics 36 (1) (2020) pp.86-106
  ISSN: 2159-9165 eISSN: 2159-9173
  Abstract

  This research departs from conventional studies of citizen’s attitudes to parliament by utilising focus groups to interrogate the incredibly low levels of trust in Ukraine’s parliament during the Yanukovych and Poroshenko presidencies and explores how far they are related to the exceptionally high levels of disruptive protest in the chamber. Low trust is shaped primarily by citizens’ concerns about corruption, particularly the role of FIGs and of deputies’ rapacious and lawless behaviour (bezpredel). Disruptive protests were largely seen as inauthentic. Low trust was accompanied by support for democracy. 
  

  Website 
• Whitmore S, 'Disrupted Democracy in Ukraine? Protest, Performance and Contention in the Verkhovna Rada'
  Europe-Asia Studies 71 (9) (2019) pp.1474-1507
  ISSN: 0966-8136
  Abstract Protest performances inside parliament articulated claims to uphold democracy that contributed to the maintenance of pluralism in Ukraine during attempted authoritarian consolidation. Simultaneously, such protests were para-institutional instruments in the ongoing power struggle engendered by a patronal system where formal institutions and norms weakly constrain actors. A diverse repertoire of protest, including rostrum-blocking, visual protest, withdrawal, auditory disruption, somatic protest and the spectacle, was used frequently and was adapted in response to changes in the political opportunity structure. Innovations to the repertoire adapted performances from social movements. In recent years, violent altercations and theatrical protests in Ukraine’s parliament involving tens of deputies have attracted attentive publics to a wide range of issues from language use, imprisoned opposition politicians and deputies’ multiple voting violations, but such spectacular performances belie hundreds of routinised deputies’ protests on procedural and policy matters. Both raise important questions about Ukraine’s political system and democratic practice1 more widely. How should we understand such protests, which are conducted by elected representatives that are already privileged in the system of power and have a range of formal legislative tools for protest at their disposal (Spary 2013), but choose instead to disrupt parliamentary proceedings? Why were such modes of behaviour so prevalent in Ukraine? What do the adaptation of distinctive types of protest reveal about the political system? Could such protests actually signify the vibrancy of democratic practice in Ukraine?Website 
• Whitmore S, 'Верховная Рада Украины: истоки и формы внутрипарламентских протестов = The Origins of Protest and Disruption in the Ukrainian Parliament'
  Neprikosnovennyĭ Zapas = Неприкосновенный запас 2019 (1) (2019) pp.11-21
  ISSN: 0869-6365
  Website 
• Whitmore S, 'Авторитарная консолидация и народное сопротивление: размышляя о причинах «евромайдана» = Authoritarian consolidation and popular resistance: Analysis of the Causes of 'Euromaidan''
  Neprikosnovennyĭ Zapas = Неприкосновенный запас 2014 (1) (2014)
  ISSN: 0869-6365
  Website 
• Isaacs R, Whitmore S, 'The limited agency and life-cycles of personalised dominant parties in the post-Soviet space: the cases of United Russia and Nur Otan'
  Democratization 21 (4) (2014) pp.699-721
  ISSN: 1351-0347 eISSN: 1743-890X
  Abstract
  Vladimir Putin’s United Russia and Nursultan Nazabayev’s Nur Otan represent a distinctive
  type of dominant party due to their personalist nature and dependence on their presidential 
  patrons. Such personalism deprives these parties of the agency to perform key roles in 
  authoritarian reproduction typically expected of dominant parties, such as resource 
  distribution, policy-making and mobilising mass support for the regime. Instead United 
  Russia and Nur Otan have contributed to authoritarian consolidation by securing the 
  president’s legislative agenda, stabilising elites to ensure their patron’s hold on power and 
  assisting in perpetuating a discourse around the national leader. However, because these 
  parties lack the agency to reproduce themselves, to entrench their position and to play more 
  than a supportive role in regime consolidation the life-span of such personalist dominant 
  parties is likely to be significantly shorter than that of dominant parties.
  Website 
• Whitmore S, 'Шоу продолжается: выборы, «Единая Россия» и режим Владимира Путина = The Show Must Go On: Elections, United Russia and the Putin Regime'
  Neprikosnovennyĭ Zapas = Неприкосновенный запас 87 (1) (2013) pp.22-32
  ISSN: 0869-6365
  Website 
• Whitmore S, 'Parliamentary oversight in Putin's neo-patrimonial state: Watchdogs or show-dogs?'
  Europe-Asia Studies 62 (6) (2010) pp.999-1025
  ISSN: 0966-8136
  Abstract

  Conceptualising Russia as a neopatrimonial state directs attention to the patrimonial relations that pervaded formal institutions to reveal increasing tensions within the state during Putin's presidency. A case study of parliamentary oversight practices points to the emergence of legitimation as their key purpose, but also to the growing contradictions between the controlling and legitimating impulses of Putin's regime. At the same time deputies responded to the changes in their status and influence by moving their resources towards the patrimonial sphere, most notably utilising oversight institutions for direct and indirect private interests-”activities tolerated by the regime in exchange for political loyalty.

  Website 
• Whitmore, S, 'Raising the Effectiveness of Parliamentary Oversight in Ukraine'
  Parliament 1 (1) (2010) pp.30-32
  
• Whitmore S, 'Цветение молодости или плесень старости? Парламентский контроль в Государственной Думе четвертого созыва = Green shoots or withering roots? : parliamentary oversight in the 4th Duma'
  Neprikosnovennyĭ Zapas = Неприкосновенный запас 57 (1) (2008) pp.111-121
  ISSN: 0869-6365
  Website 
• Whitmore S, 'Challenges and Constraints for Post-Soviet Committee Systems: Exploring the Impact of Parties on Committees in Ukraine'
  Journal of Legislative Studies 12 (1) (2006) pp.32-53
  ISSN: 1357-2334 eISSN: 1743-9337
  Abstract

  This study focuses on the impact of parliamentary parties on committees' structure and activity in the post-Soviet context. Through a case study of committees in Ukraine's Rada, the paper demonstrates that weak, fluid parties can act as a barrier to committees' efficacy by shaping their structure, leadership and by blocking ameliorating reforms. Although Ukraine's committees were formally allocated a significant role in the law-making process, in practice the realisation of this function was constrained by parties and also by context of the wider institutional uncertainty.
  

  Website 
• Whitmore S, 'State and Institution Building Under Kuchma'
  Problems of Post-Communism 52 (2005) pp.3-11
  ISSN: 1075-8216
  
• Whitmore S, 'Faction Institutionalisation and Parliamentary Development in Ukraine'
  Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 19 (4) (2003) pp.41-64
  ISSN: 1352-3279 eISSN: 1743-9116
  Abstract

  The institutionalization of factions in Ukraine’s parliament has proceeded in a patchy, uneven manner as a consequence of cross-cutting incentives created by the Constitution, lower order rules and the actions of the president. Although factions became more organizationally complex and disciplined, membership instability significantly undermined these developments so that factions remained weakly institutionalized. Despite this, factions came to exercise greater influence over the parliamentary leadership and the legislative process, largely thanks to the formation of Ukraine’s first parliamentary majority in 2000. However, as this majority was orchestrated by President Kuchma, Ukraine’s parliament remained vulnerable to external pressure.
  

  Website 

Book chapters

• Whitmore S, 'Ukraine's European Integration and the Role of Parliament' in Copsey N, Mayhew A (ed.), European Neighbourhood Policy: The Case of Ukraine, University of Sussex. Sussex European Institute (2007)
  Website 
• Whitmore S, 'Does Institutional Design Matter? Evidence from Ukraine's Parliament, 1990-2000' in Bredies I (ed.), Zur Anatomie der Orangen Revolution in der Ukraine: Wechsel des Elitenregimes oder Triumph des Parliamentarismus?, Ibidem (2006)
  
• Whitmore S, '‘"Damit mussen wir leben": Das neue Parlament und das neue Regierungssystem der Ukraine' ('We have what we have' The New Parliament and the New Political System in Ukraine)' in Pleines H (ed.), Die Ukraine unter Prasident Jushtschenko Auf der Suche nach politischer Stabilitat, Forschungsstelle Osteuropa Bremen Arbeitspapiere und Materialien (2006)
  

Reviews

• Whitmore S, review of The Central Government of Russia: From Gorbachev to Putin., in Slavonic and East European Review 85 (2007) pp.186-188ISSN: 0037-6795
  
• Whitmore S, review of Revolution in Orange: the Origins of Ukraines Democratic Breakthrough., in International Affairs 82 (2006) pp.1190-1191ISSN: 0020-5850 eISSN: 1468-2346
  
• Whitmore S, review of Religion and Nation in Modern Ukraine., in Europe-Asia Studies 57 (2005) pp.163-165ISSN: 0966-8136
  

Other publications

• Whitmore S, 'Political Party development in Ukraine (GSDRC Applied Knowledge Services Helpdesk Report, No.1146)'
  

  Research report commissioned by GSDRC Applied Knowledge Services at the request of DFID.

  (2015) Website 
• Whitmore S, 'Man spielt den Regeln und nicht nach den Regeln: Politische Ungewissheit in der Ukraine (‘Playing with the Rules, Not by the Rules: Political Uncertainty in Ukraine')'
  19 (2007)

Whitmore, S. State-Building in Ukraine: The Ukrainian Parliament, 1990-2003, RoutledgeCurzon, 2004, IBSN 978-0-415-33195-1 (hbk), ISBN 978-0415-65192-9 (pbk)

Whitmore, S. GSDRC Applied Knowledge Services Helpdesk Report No.1146, ‘Political Party development in Ukraine’, 2015, DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.4409.1360

Whitmore, S. 'Авторитарная консолидация и народное сопротивление: размышляя о причинах «евромайдана»', ('Authoritarian consolidation and popular resistance: Analysis of the Causes of 'Euromaidan'), Neprikosnovennyi Zapas, 2014, 93(1)

Whitmore, S. 'Shou prodolzhaetsya: vybory, "Edinaya Rossiya" i rezhim Vladimira Putina' ('The Show Must Go On: Elections, United Russia and the Putin Regime'), Neprikosnovennyi Zapas, 2013, 65(1), pp.22-32

Whitmore, S. ‘Ukraine's European Integration and the Role of Parliament' in Nathaniel Copsey and Alan Mayhew (eds) European Neighbourhood Policy: The Case of Ukraine, Seminar Series in Contemporary European Studies, University of Sussex: Sussex European Institute, 2007, pp. 45-57

Whitmore, S. ‘Man spielt den Regeln und nicht nach den Regeln: Politische Ungewissheit in der Ukraine' (‘Playing with the Rules, Not by the Rules: Political Uncertainty in Ukraine'), Ukraine-Analysen, 2007, no. 19, pp. 2-6

Whitmore, S. ‘Challenges and Constraints for Post-Soviet Comittee Systems: Exploring the Impact of Parties on Committees in Ukraine', Journal of Legislative Studies, 2006, vol. 12, no. 1, pp.32-45

Whitmore, S. ‘"Damit mussen wir leben": Das neue Parlament und das neue Regierungssystem der Ukraine' ('We have what we have' The New Parliament and the New Political System in Ukraine) in Heiko Pleines (ed.) Die Ukraine unter Prasident Jushtschenko Auf der Suche nach politischer Stabilitat, 2006, No.75 ed., Forschungsstelle Osteuropa Bremen Arbeitspapiere und Materialien pp. 35-39

Whitmore, S. ‘Does Institutional Design Matter? Evidence from Ukraine's Parliament, 1990-2000', in I. Bredies (ed.), Zur Anatomie der Orangen Revolution in der Ukraine: Wechsel des Elitenregimes oder Triumph des Parliamentarismus?, Stuttgart: Ibidem, 2005, pp.85-113

Whitmore, S. 'Faction Institutionalisation and Parliamentary Development in Ukraine', The Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics, 2003, vol.19, no.4, pp.41-6

Whitmore, S. 'Fragmentation or Consolidation? Parties in Ukraine's Parliament', Research Papers in Russian and East European Studies, ResPREES 02/02, University of Birmingham: 2002, ISBN 07044 23626. Downloadable PDF available from: http://www.crees.bham.ac.uk/research/ResPREES/index.htm

 

Membership of professional bodies

Membership of Editorial Board

Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society series, Ibidem-Verlag, Stuttgart

Consultancy

Sarah has undertaken consultancy on Ukrainian domestic politics for the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the US Department of State, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy with the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, Washington-based NGO the Center for Public Integrity and served as an election monitor for the OSCE.

Other experience

Media

Sarah has considerable media experience, give live interviews on TV and radio as well as to newspapers on Ukrainian politics. These include BBC 2's Newsnight, BBC World, BBC News, BBC 5Live, BBC World Service, LBC, BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Oxford, Newstalk 106 (Dublin), the European Voice, Den'(Ukrainian daily newspaper), Radio Ukraine International, Radio France International and The Dallas Morning Post.

Education and work

• 2002-3 ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship, University of Birmingham
• 2002 PhD (awarded Ashley Prize for Best PhD in the Social Sciences at the University of Birmingham)
• 1998 MSocSc (Distinction), University of Birmingham
• 1994-6 Teacher of English Language, Kyiv, Ukraine
• 1993 BA(Hons) History and Politics, Staffordshire University

 

Further information

Languages

Russian, Ukrainian