Lecture Series: "Mobility and Order: Models, Actors and Contestations in Eurasia"

This event is part of the ongoing lecture series hosted by the Institute for East European Studies (Osteuropa-Institut).

This Week's Lecture

Title: The Political Economy of Brain Drain

Speaker: Theocharis Grigoriadis (FU Berlin)

Time: 14:15 - 15:45

Location:
Osteuropa-Institut, Lecture Hall A
Garystraße 55
14195 Berlin

Abstract

Is brain drain a strategic choice of democracies and autocracies? We propose an economy with two types of workers, high- and low-skilled. We differentiate between a government that can be replaced with elections (democracy) and a government that can be replaced with a revolution (dictatorship). Political change is less likely in economies with a lower share of skilled workers, while the intensity of political competition increases in economies with a high share of skilled workers. By considering variation within autocracies and democracies we explain why brain drain is higher in dictatorships than in democracies, and why within-regime variation also matters.

General Information

• The complete program of the lecture series can be found here.
• All lectures will be recorded and made available on the website of the Mediothek of Osteuropa-Institut and on the institute's YouTube channel.

About the Lecture Series

This lecture series features both researchers from the Institute for East European Studies (OEI) and international scholars with a focus on Eastern Europe, Russia, and Eurasia. The series explores the interplay between voluntary and involuntary human mobility across state borders and the political regimes, social orders, and cultural landscapes of Eurasia. Topics such as diversity, labor, migration, development, and the impact of refugees on their host societies are discussed from multiple disciplinary perspectives.

These interactions occur as the existing political, economic, and cultural world order is being reshaped by the deepening Russian-Chinese partnership, Russia’s attempts to secure its zones of influence, economic nationalism, and the weakening influence of the “West.” Therefore, the series also includes lectures that connect this regional focus to the emerging logic of geopolitics and geoeconomics, and the construction of alternative institutions influencing both mobility and order.