Political Cycles in Media Harassment

In this lecture, Dr. Nikita Zakharov explores the political economy of media harassment in Russia by using a unique monthly dataset on the incidents of harassment of the media in Russian cities between 2004 and 2017 to establish political cycles driven by local elections. This research analyzed frequency of harassment incidents during the two months before a local election – a period that coincides with the official period of the electoral campaign. The lecture will also discuss how the effect differs with respect to the level of local election.

Nikita Zakharov was born in Kazan where he earned a bachelor’s degree from the Kazan Economic and Financial Institute with honors. He received a DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship to pursue a masters in Germany, where he finished his master’s degree in Freiburg. After a small break, Nikita returned to Freiburg to complete a doctoral thesis on the topic “Corruption in Russia” under Prof. Schulze, while he worked as a teaching and research assistant. Chapters from his dissertation have been successfully published in the Journal of Law and Economics, European Journal of Political Economy and Economics Letters. He is currently working on the topic of the political economy of media in Russia.