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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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Manfredi Valeriani

Manfredi Valeriani earned his PhD at Hamburg University and Luiss University with a thesis on “Funding Instruments to Italian NGOs” is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at Luiss where he also teaches Political Risk Analysis and International Politics and Businesses. He has been Adjunct Professor at the University “L’Orientale” in Naples and at the American University of Rome. His research currently focuses on Structured Analytic Techniques, Scenario Analysis, and Italian Foreign Policy.
Marc Reverdin

Marc Reverdin is an international expert in public affairs and strategic diplomacy. He is the founder and CEO of Reverdin Consulting, a high-level advisory firm that helps companies and institutions navigate major geopolitical, economic, and environmental challenges. A former French diplomat, he served in Paris, Rome, and the services of the French Prime Minister before co-founding the Paris Peace Forum, an initiative of the French President launched in 2018. He now leads or advises several international initiatives, particularly in the agrifood, African, and Mediterranean sectors. Marc is also a frequent speaker, high-level moderator, and lecturer in international affairs.
Marco Massoni

Marco Massoni (PhD, Rome 1972) is an independent political analyst and international relations expert, specialist in Africa, Latin America, and Extra-Western philosophies. Since 2022, he has been teaching African Studies at LUISS University of Rome. As of 2025, he directs the Africa and Latin America Research Unit at LUISS’s Centre for International and Strategic Studies (CISS). Previously, he served as Diplomatic Senior Advisor for the Italian G8 Presidency and worked with the EU, OSCE, UN (FAO, UNHCR), NGOs, and think tanks. From 2011 to 2017, he was Director of African Research at IRAD at the Italian Centre for Defence Higher Studies (CASD), where he still lectures. He was Editorial Director of the quarterly Politica Africana. He has taught Development Studies at The American University of Rome (AUR) and International Law and Peace Processes at Roma Tre University. He is a consultant of the European Union External Action Service (EEAS) and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), extensive experience in the field of democratisation processes, electoral observation & electoral assistance, diplomacy & negotiation, cyber-diplomacy, human rights & humanitarian law, mediation, peacebuilding & conflict resolution, post-war reconstruction and strategic studies.
Maria Giulia Amadio Viceré

Maria Giulia Amadio Vicerè is Assistant Professor (Tenure Track) in Political Science at the Department of Political Science of Luiss University and a Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (EUI). Before that, she has been a Marie Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (EUI), an Adjunct Professor and post-doctoral fellow at Luiss University, and an Assistant Professor at Leiden University. She held various visiting positions in international renowned institutions, among which the German Institute for International Affairs, the Centre for European Studies at Harvard University, the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, and the Policy Institute at King’s College. Over time, she has also been the recipient of merit-based scholarships and grants from the European Commission; the Zegna Group; the Lazio Region; and the The Australian Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethic. Beyond academia, she has been a Research Associate at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, a Research Fellow at the Policy Planning Unit of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, a Blue Book Trainee at the Service for Foreign Policy Instrument of the European Commission and a research intern at the European Policy Centre. Moreover, she has briefed and provided training to public and private institutions, among which the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Italian Ministry of Defence, Oxford Analytica, the European Institute for the Mediterranean, the Swedish Institute for European Studies, the Foundation for European Progressive Studies, Villa Vigoni, and il Sole 24 Ore Business School.
Marlène Agnès Laruelle

Marlene Laruelle is a Full Professor of Political Science at Luiss Guido Carli University and previously served as Research Professor at The George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies (IERES) from 2011 to 2025, where she held leadership roles as Associate Director and Director. She earned her Ph.D. in History from INALCO in Paris and a habilitation in Political Science from Sciences Po Paris. Laruelle leads the Illiberalism Studies Program, a transatlantic platform dedicated to research on illiberalism and postliberalism, and is a non-residential Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center. Throughout her career, she has held fellowships and visiting appointments at notable institutions such as the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna, IFRI, the Carnegie Council, the Woodrow Wilson Center, and SAIS–Johns Hopkins University. She has authored or edited over twenty books with top academic presses, including recent monographs like Ideology and Meaning-Making under Putin Regime (2025) and Russia’s Arctic: A Changing Geopolitical and Environmental Context (2026), alongside numerous articles in leading scholarly and policy publications.

Trained as a historian of ideas, Laruelle’s early work focused on post-Soviet Central Asia and Russia, examining nation-building processes, regional geopolitics, labor migration, and the intellectual underpinnings of Putin’s regime. Her research later expanded to the Russian Arctic, exploring how environmental change, infrastructure development, and territorial imaginaries influence political worldviews. More recently, she has turned to conceptual history and global comparative studies, analyzing the challenges facing liberalism and the emerging normative alternatives to the liberal international order. Her scholarship bridges academic rigor with policy relevance, offering insights into the evolving political and intellectual dynamics of Russia and the broader international system.
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Researcher

Claudio Christopher Passalacqua

Claudio Christopher Passalacqua is currently a teaching assistant in international relations at Luiss Guido Carli. He earned a Ph.D. in international studies from the University of Trento, with a focus on power shifts in standard settings. His research interests include Foreign Policy Analysis, EU-China relations, and the competition between great powers over digital connectivity plans. Claudio holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs from John Cabot University, as well as a Double-Master Degree in International Relations from LUISS Guido Carli and China Foreign Affairs University. In addition, he worked as a lecturer and teaching assistant at the University of Trento, as a Schuman trainee at the European Parliament, and as an intern at the Italian Trade Agency in Beijing.
Corrado Giustozzi

Corrado Giustozzi is a cybersecurity strategic advisor and public speaker. He is a professor of Cybersecurity at Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, member of the ICT Authority of the Republic of San Marino, and member of the Scientific Committee of Clusit. He served as a super-senior cybersecurity expert at the Agency for Digital Italy (AgID) and as a member of the Advisory Group of the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA). His current interests are cybersecurity in AI systems, in cyber-physical environments and in future space settlements. He holds a degree in ICT Engineering from Tor Vergata University of Rome.
Cristoforo Romanelli

Cristoforo Romanelli is an electrical engineer and industrial manager with extensive experience in planning and strategic control. He has worked with AGIP, SIP, STET, IRI, and FINSIEL, holding key roles in corporate affairs, external relations, and executive management. Since 2001, he has been active in the aerospace sector, serving at Alenia Aeronautica, as CEO of Quadrics (UK), and as General Manager of ALTEC. He is a professor of Space Economy at the University Guglielmo Marconi, a staff consultant to the CEO of MBDA Italia, and event manager of the New Space Economy ExpoForum.
Dalva Raposo

Dalva Raposo is a Master’s student in Global Management and Politics at LUISS Guido Carli, where she is an ENI Scholar and serves as President of the African Student Association. She holds a dual BSc in Foreign Service and International Politics from Georgetown University. Her academic interests include African regional politics, the political economy of development, and Gulf–Africa relations within the broader field of Global South international relations. She has held research roles at the Center for Regional and International Studies (Qatar) and the Euro-Gulf Information Center (Italy), contributing to projects on Gulf migration regimes, civil society under authoritarianism, and energy diplomacy. She is contributing a chapter on youth to African Regional Organizations. In 2025, she has served as Assistant Director at Ivy Camps USA in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and she has been an intern at the Embassy of Mozambique in Rome. She speaks Portuguese, MSA Arabic, English, and Spanish. Dalva focuses on how emerging powers and alternative finance are reshaping Global South partnerships, especially in Lusophone energy diplomacy and shifting alliances in Francophone Africa.
Daniela Irrera

Daniela Irrera is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at the School of Advanced Defence Studies, CASD, Rome. She is also Visiting Professor of Political Violence and Terrorism and Civil Society and Sustainability at the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. She currently serves as Chair of the ECPR, associate editor of the Journal of Contemporary European Studies, co-editor of the Springer book series on Non-State Actors in International Relations, together with Marianna Charountaki. She is a member of the EU Research Committee of the Knowledge Hub on Prevention of Radicalization and is consultant for the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries.
Donatella Selva

Donatella Selva is Associate Professor and teaches Crisis Communication and Political Communication at LUISS. She graduated in Political Science at LUISS and holds a PhD in Sociology of Communication from the University of Urbino. She previously held teaching and research positions at the University of Florence, the University of Tuscia and the Pontifical Gregorian University. Her research topics focus on disinformation studies and journalism, AI, digital technology and social media, and the interplay between politics and culture. She is the PI of a three-year project about news avoidance funded by the Italian Ministry of Research (FIS 2).
Donato Di Carlo

Donato Di Carlo is senior researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, in Cologne, and lecturer at Luiss University. Prior to joining Luiss, he has been Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute, in Fiesole. His research interests revolve around the study of comparative political economy, with a focus on growth models and the role of the state in economic development and industrial policy. His current research project analyses the steady expansion of the international tourism industry in Southern Europe, investigating the determinants and properties of governments’ developmental policies undertaken to foster tourism-led growth.
Donato Greco

Donato Greco is Junior Assistant Professor of International Law at the LUISS Guido Carli (Rome), Department of Law, where he lectures on International Law, International Organisation and Human Rights, and International Legal Education.
In January 2021, he earned a PhD at the University of Naples Federico II, with a thesis on the normative relevance of soft law in the international legal system. Over the years, he has completed his academic education abroad at the Universities of Amsterdam (2014), Freiburg im Breisgau (2014-2015) and at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (University of Cambridge) from January to June 2022. At The Hague Academy of International Law, he attended the 2019 Winter Courses on Public and Private International Law and the 2022 Summer Courses on Public International Law, the latter having been awarded a scholarship funded by Dame Rosalyn Higgins.
He authored several papers published in specialized international law journals and book chapters in collective works, both in Italian and English. His research interests mainly focus on legal sources and their interpretation, the relationship between international and municipal law, global health, international economic and environmental law, immunities, and human rights.
Elvira Simonelli

Elvira Simonelli is a master student in International Relations at LUISS University in Rome, with an academic experience at the University of Exeter, UK. She holds a B.A. in Political Science, culminating in research centred on US Foreign Policy analysis towards Israel.

Her academic interests lie at the intersection of strategic studies and communication, with a specific focus on the Middle East and the evolving dynamics of geopolitical security.
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