Cynthia S. Kaplan is a Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. She received her BA with Honors from the University of Chicago and her PhD from Columbia University, NY, NY. Her theoretical interests include Comparative Politics, Ethnic Identity, Social Movements and Cultural Framing, Political Participation, Transitions & Democratisation, and Comparative Methods. Surveys, events data analysis, discourse and content analysis are among the methods used in her research. Her field research is conducted in Russia, Estonia, Tatarstan and Kazakhstan. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Estonia, director of Education Abroad for the University of California in Moscow, Russia, and most recently a visiting professor at Eurasian National University in Astana, Kazakhstan and Al Farabi Kazakhstan National University in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Her current work includes papers on Russian Identity: Subjective Meanings from Estonia, Russia, and Kazakhstan and Culture, Religion, and State Status: A Comparison of Tatar and Kazakh Identities. Her forthcoming book with Professor Henry Brady (UC Berkeley), Gathering Voices: Political Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet Union will be published by Cambridge University Press.
