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RusLab

The Russia Observatory (RUSLAB) is a dedicated research hub for the study of Russia, its domestic politics, historical trajectories, and international role, combining academic rigour with policy-relevant analysis and public-facing outputs. The research is situated within the broader debate on post-liberal contestation and the transformation of the international order.

RuLAB’s work aims to integrate close analysis of domestic governance, political economy, and social dynamics with a strong historical perspective rooted in Soviet and imperial legacies. It also examines how past institutional configurations, political cultures, and identity narratives continue to shape contemporary Russian politics and society.

Thematically, the Observatory covers four main interconnected areas:

Domestic politics and society — governance structures, center–periphery relations, regional identities, social stratification, ideological, religious and cultural evolutions, and the interaction between elites and the Russian society.
Russia–Europe relations — historical entanglements, energy interdependence, security architecture, and the reconfiguration of ties under war and sanctions.
The Eurasian space — relations with neighboring states, regional integration, and alignments involving China, Turkey, India, and other major Global South actors.
Global footprint — Russia’s political, economic, and security presence in Africa, the Middle East, and Russia’s role in reshaping the broader international order.

Head of Unit

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Paolo Glisenti

Paolo Glisenti is a journalist, international strategist, and expert in communication and large-scale event management, known for his leadership as Italy’s Commissioner General for Expo 2020 Dubai and Expo 2025 Osaka–Kansai. With a background in economic and financial journalism in London, New York, and Italy, he held senior executive roles in major multinational companies—including News Corp Europe and Montedison USA—and served on the boards of listed firms across media, telecoms, and pharmaceuticals. Founder of PGConsultants, he has advised governments, institutions, and corporations on communication strategies and international bids, playing a pivotal role in Milan’s successful campaign for Expo 2015, for which he was awarded the Knighthood of Merit of the Italian Republic. His work blends public diplomacy, strategic vision, and deep industry knowledge, making him a key figure in Italy’s global outreach and event diplomacy.
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Raffaele Marchetti

Raffaele Marchetti (Laurea, Rome-La Sapienza; PhD, London-LSE) is Deputy Rector for Internationalization and Professor in International Relations at the Department of Political Science and the School of Government of LUISS. His research interest concerns global politics and governance, hybrid and city diplomacy, transnational civil society, (cyber-)security and political risk, and democracy.

He acts as external expert for the European Commission and other public/private institutions on issues of global governance, public policies, civil society, and security. He is ISA’s United Nations-NGO Representative (2022-2024). He is also member of the editorial board of The International Spectator, the Academic Advisory Board of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA), LabGov – the LABoratory for the GOVernance of the City as a Commons, International Institute for Social and Economic Studies (IISES). He is the editor of the Routledge series Innovations in International Affairs and the Luiss University Press series Radar.
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Rosario Forlenza

Rosario Forlenza specializes in the history of modern Europe and Italy in its global implications. He works at the intersection of history, politics and anthropology and focuses particularly on democracy and authoritarianism, political revolutions, nationalism and the politics of memory, politics and religion, symbolic politics, and the Cold War. He has written six books, co-edited two volumes, and published over forty peer-reviewed articles and chapters, most notably in The American Historical Review, Past & Present, and Journal of Contemporary History, He is currently working on a comparative history of revolutions from the perspective of political anthropology, on the totalitarian experiences in interwar Russia, Italy, and Germany, and on the global history of Christian Democracy.
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Silvia Menegazzi

Silvia Menegazzi is Head of the AsiaLAB Research Unit and Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Luiss Guido Carli University, where she teaches International Relations and Asian Studies. Her research interests span International Relations, Global Governance, and Area Studies, with a particular focus on the politics and economic development of Asian countries, especially China, Japan, and South Korea.

She has held visiting scholar positions at Sciences Po (Paris), George Washington University (Washington, DC), the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of Warwick, and China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) in Beijing. Dr. Menegazzi has been the recipient of research grants and scholarships from several European and Asian institutions.

She lived in China for more than four years and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. Her work has been published in academic journals and media outlets, including International Politics, Global Society, Asia Europe Journal, East Asia Forum, and China Files. Among her most recent publications are China’s Blueprint for Global Leadership: GSI, GDI, GCI and Xi Jinping’s Vision for the International Order (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025, with M. Dian); La Cina e la politica globale (Mondadori, 2023); The NATO–South Korea strategic alignment and contemporary order-building, (International Politics, 2026, with T. Novotna).

Researcher

Antonio Calcara

Antonio Calcara is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Antwerp in Belgium. He received his PhD in Political Science from the LUISS Guido Carli University in 2015. His research interests are in the fields of European security and defence-industrial issues. His twitter account is @AntonioCalcara.
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Anna Pirri Valentini is Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science of Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome, where she teaches Heritage, Tourism and Sustainable Economic Development Policies. She is also Adjunct Professor of Art Market Legislation at NABA, Milan.
Dr. Pirri Valentini obtained her Ph.D. in Analysis and Management of Cultural Heritage at IMT School for Advanced Studies, Lucca (2020) and graduated in law at Sapienza University, Rome (2015).

She has been a Visiting research scholar at the Institut des Sciences Sociales du Politique -École normale supérieure Paris Saclay- (Paris) and at the LSE- London School of Economics and Political Science (London).
Her research focuses on the policies and regulation of cultural heritage and art law. Her first monograph will be published (2023) in the She published in Italian (Rivista Trimestrale di Diritto Pubblico, Giornale di Diritto Amministrativo, AEDON, Diritto dell’Arte) and international (International Journal of Constitutional Law) journals. Dr. Pirri Valentini is member of the International Society of Public Law (ICON·S) and the Istituto di Ricerca sulla Pubblica Amministrazione (IRPA).
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Arlo Poletti

Arlo Poletti is Professor of International Relations at the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento. He holds a PhD from the University of Bologna, previously held a postdoctoral position at the University of Antwerp (2009–2013), and served as Assistant Professor at LUISS Guido Carli (2013–2016) and at the University of Bologna (2016).

His roles at Trento include coordinating the BA in International Studies and serving on the Board of the Doctorate of Research in International Studies at the School of International Studies. He also acts as an expert evaluator for national and international research funding bodies.

His research lies in International Political Economy, focusing on the political economy of globalization, including the politics of trade and investment, transnational advocacy at global and EU levels, and international regulatory cooperation. Recent work examines how globalization-induced economic distress shapes individual preferences and political behavior.

He is the author of five monographs, with research published in International Organization, Regulation & Governance, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, Review of International Studies, European Political Science Review, and Review of International Organizations.
Bjørn Thomassen

Bjørn Thomassen is Professor in Social Science at the Department of Social Sciences and Business at Roskilde University. Research areas include: history of social thought, social theory, Italian studies, global religion, urban studies, identity & memory politics, nationalism, liminality and social change, revolutions, social and cultural dimensions of globalization. He has published more than 50 articles across the social and political sciences. He is the author of ”Italy’s Christian Democracy. The Catholic Encounter with Political Modernity” (Oxford UP, 2024, with R. Forlenza), ”From Anthropology to Social Theory: Rethinking the Social Sciences” (Cambridge UP, 2019, with A. Szakolczai), ”Liminality and the Modern. Living Through the In-between” (Routledge, 2016), “Global Rome: Changing Faces of the Eternal City” (Indiana UP, 2014, with I. Clough-Marinaro). He is currently leader of a research project funded by Velux on “The Catholic Ethic and the Spirit of Global Modernities” (2021-2025).
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Carolina De Stefano

Carolina De Stefano is a Lecturer in European and Russian History at Luiss Guido Carli University and an associate member of the Centre d’Etudes des Mondes Russe, Caucasien & Centre-Européen (CERCEC-EHESS) in Paris.

After graduating in International Relations from Luiss Guido Carli University, she earned her PhD from Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa and the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and a post-doc from the Finnish Academy of Sciences, with a dissertation and research project focusing on the collapse of the USSR and the handling of post-Soviet ethnic conflicts.

From 2014 until early 2022, she has conducted long-term archival research in Moscow and speaks Russian fluently. She has been a visiting researcher at several research institutions, including Harvard University, George Washington University, the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and the University of Warsaw,

She is the author of Storia del Potere in Russia. Dagli Zar a Putin (Morcelliana, 2022) and has published several articles on late-Soviet and contemporary Russian history in international peer-reviewed academic journals such as Kritika (forthcoming, 2025), Russian History (2023), Cahiers du MondeRusse (2023), Russian Review (2022), the Journal of Eurasian Studies (2020). Her current book project aims to providethe first systematic historical account of the attempts made by experts and politicians under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin to reform nationalities policies, handle ethnic conflicts, and give birth to a new Russia’s foreign policy towards its new neighbors in the years of the Soviet disintegration 1986-1994. This research aims to retrace some of the historical and political roots of today’s Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Since 2016, she has collaborated as a Russia expert with Oxford Analytica, as well as written analyses on Russian politics, foreign policy, and Russia-Ukraine relations for national newspapers (Il Sole 24 Ore, Corriere della Sera, Domani, and The Huffington Post).
Carolina Polito

Carolina Polito is a PhD Candidate at LUISS Guido Carli University, where she deals with the geopolitics of surveillance technologies, in particular the export of biometric technologies to developing countries. She is also an associate researcher at the Center for European Policy Studies (Brussels) where she works on Tender-based projects for the evaluations of European policies on cybersecurity. She was an associate researcher at the International Affairs Institute (IAI) where she also worked on digital-related issues such as the proliferation of cyber weapons.
Christopher Hein

Christopher Hein is Professor on contract at the University LUISS Guidi Carli, Dep. Political Science. He is a former UN international civil servant and former Director of the Italian Council for Refugees. Among his recent publications: La protezione dei diritti umani (ed.), LUISS University Press 2021; The Reform of the Dublin System, in: I Flussi Migratori e le Sfide all’Europa, ed. E. Sciso, Turin 2020.
Claudia Candelmo

Claudia Candelmo is Researcher (RTD-B) in International Law at the Department of Law, University of Udine. Previously, she was Teaching Fellow in EU Law at Durham Law School and visiting research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Public, Comparative and International Law (Heidelberg). Her main research interests concern State responsibility and the interconnection between international humanitarian law and international human rights law.