Thomas Hazell

Politics (2022 cohort)

My research interests are in post-Soviet politics, authoritarianism, and qualitative methods. My thesis will ask why autocrats engage in costly processes of formal institutional reform, despite their apparent abilities to circumvent such institutions, with a focus on electoral reform in Central Asia.

Prior to starting on the MPhil, I received a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from Oxford. My undergraduate thesis used process tracing to explain electoral reform under Leonid Kuchma’s competitive authoritarian regime in early 2000s Ukraine. I previously worked as a research assistant on the Oxford University Economic Recovery Project at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.