Professor Olga Onuch / Проф. Ольга Онух (DPhil Oxford 2010) has been appointed Professor (Chair) in Comparative and Ukrainian Politics at the University of Manchester (UoM), making Onuch the first-ever holder of a Full Professorship in Ukrainian Politics in the English-speaking world and making the UoM the first English language University to host such a Professorship. Prof Olga Onuch plans to launch the Ukraine Rises course at the UoM in September.
Prof. Onuch specializes on comparative politics of Eastern Europe and Latin America, the motivations behind citizens’ voting, protesting, and migrating behaviors. Her research also explores factors related to media consumption, identity formation, and policy preferences. Through her work, Prof. Onuch demonstrates that civic identity and the sense of duty play a crucial role in shaping political behavior, particularly in contexts transitioning to democracy. Her comparative study of engagement and democratic civic duty has established her as a prominent expert in Ukrainian and Argentine politics, as well as in the field of East European Comparative Politics and inter-regional comparative analysis.
Prof. Onuch is the Lead and UK Principle Investigator of MOBILISE “Determinants of ‘Mobilisation’ at Home and Abroad: Analysing the Micro- Foundations of Out-Migration & Mass Protest”. This multi-year project (2018-2023) is funded through the Open Research Area (ORA) Scheme with the direct support of the ESRC in the UK, the DFG in Germany, the ANR in France, and the NWO in the Netherlands (over €2 million in total). Her recent monograph, The Zelensky Effect (OUP/Hurst 2023/2022, co-authored with Henry Hale, was reviewed/cited in New York Review of Books, TLS Foreign Affairs, Guardian, Washington Post, New York Times and more), analyzing the rise of democratic duty and state attachment in Ukraine.
Onuch joined UoM in 2014, after holding research posts at the University of Toronto (2010-2011), the University of Oxford (2011-2014), and Harvard University (2013-2014). Since 2014, in addition to her post at UoM, Prof. Onuch was: an Associate Member (Politics) of Nuffield College at the University of Oxford (2014-2021), a Fellow at the Davis Center at the University of Harvard (2017), a Visiting Professor at Universidad Di Tella (2019-2020), and a Senior Research Associate at CERES, Munk School at the University of Toronto (2021).