ynthia Kaplan has visited the countries of the former Soviet Union over 72 times with research residencies in Russia, Tatarstan, Kazakhstan and Estonia.  She was a Fulbright Scholar in Estonia during Fall 2005, spent part of the summers of 2006 and 2008 in Kazan, Tatarstan and regularly visits Kazakhstan and Estonia. 

She has participated on the International Research and Exchanges Board’s scholars programs four times, living in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tallinn (Estonia), Novosibirsk, and Kazan, and has served as the director of the UC System-wide Study Center in Moscow.  She co-convenes the Research Focus Group on Identity under the auspices of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UCSB and leads the Politics in Identity Group in the department.   Her survey research in Russia and Estonia has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the U.S. Institute for Peace, and the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies.  In addition to surveys, her research includes the creation of an event data set based on the coding of the Russian and Estonian language press and a discourse analysis of Estonian and Russian language literary journals. She has conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups on identity in Russia, Tatarstan, Estonia, and Kazakhstan and currently serves as the Senior Foreign Consultant on a project studying  youth culture in Kazakhstan..

Professor Kaplan  and Henry E. Brady (UC Berkeley) are authors of Gathering Voices: Political Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet Union(forthcoming, Cambridge University Press), and is the author of The Party and Agricultural Crisis Management in the USSR (Cornell University Press, 1987).  Her current research focuses on constructivist understandings of identity in Estonia, Tatarstan, and Kazakhstan. 

She has participated on the International Research and Exchanges Board’s scholars programs four times, living in St. Petersburg, Moscow, Tallinn (Estonia), Novosibirsk, and Kazan, and has served as the director of the UC System-wide Study Center in Moscow.  She co-convenes the Research Focus Group on Identity under the auspices of the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UCSB and leads the Politics in Identity Group in the department.   Her survey research in Russia and Estonia has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the U.S. Institute for Peace, and the National Council for Soviet and East European Studies.  In addition to surveys, her research includes the creation of an event data set based on the coding of the Russian and Estonian language press and a discourse analysis of Estonian and Russian language literary journals. She has conducted in-depth interviews and focus groups on identity in Russia, Tatarstan, Estonia, and Kazakhstan and currently serves as the Senior Foreign Consultant on a project studying youth culture in Kazakhstan..  Her current research focuses on constructivist understandings of identity in Estonia, Tatarstan, and Kazakhstan.

Most recently, Professor Kaplan became part of a new research project led by the Department of Political Science and Technology, Al Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan (www.kaznu.kz/ru/355) and  sponsored by the Kazakhstan Ministry of Education and Science, “Educational Migration from Kazakhstan:  Tendencies, Factors and Socio-Political Consequences.”  UCSB has an official exchange agreement with Al Farabi Kazakh National University.