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Biography
Ruta is a Doctoral Researcher in the School of Politics and International Relations. Her research explores the affinity between Hegemonic masculinity and Political image-making and in post-Soviet spaces, by providing a comparative analysis of Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukashenka, recently resigned Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev, and now deceased Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov-Turkmenbashi.
Prior to starting her PhD research, Ruta completed MA in Politics, Security and Integration at SSEES, UCL, where her focus included Political image-making, Gender and Visual representation as well as Gender and Politics in the post-Soviet region. Accordingly, the topic of her MA thesis was "The Use of Gendered Images in post-Soviet Political Image-Making: the Cases of Yulia Tymoshenko and Vladimir Putin". Before that, she completed her BA(Hons) in International Relations at the University of Essex. The undergraduate program included student exchange year, which Ruta spent at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
Twitter: ruta_skriptaite
Expertise Summary
- Political image-making
- Gender and Politics
- Gender and Visual representation
- Masculinities
- Soviet Politics
- Post-Soviet Politics
Research Summary
Ruta's is currently working on her PhD thesis is "Political Image-making and Post-Soviet Patriarchal Leadership: A Comparative Analysis of Belarus, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan". The study has three… read more
Current Research
Ruta's is currently working on her PhD thesis is "Political Image-making and Post-Soviet Patriarchal Leadership: A Comparative Analysis of Belarus, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan". The study has three key aims: 1) to explore political leadership in post-Soviet spaces which are still relatively terra incognito; 2) to theorise how hegemonic masculinity can help us understand post-soviet leadership; and 3) to analyse the ways in which visual imagery relates to symbolic representation.
The project will provide a much-needed analysis of the affinity between hegemonic masculinity and political image-making and the effects of this phenomenon in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. The research will also test the global practical applicability and relevance of the phenomenon by juxtaposing the three case studies with relevant cases in countries considered to be democratic and not belonging to the post-Soviet space. Thus, the relevance of the research will extend beyond the subjects of Political image-making, Hegemonic masculinity or post-Soviet studies. It will provide conclusions which also would be of interest to those studying subjects such as Authoritarianism, Nationalism, Cult of personality, Gender and Politics, Feminism, Masculinities as well as Gender and Visual representation.
Ruta's research supervisors are Bettina Renz and Carole Spary.