Alex Chumakov

Alex Chumakov is a PhD researcher in Politics at the University of Manchester, exploring exile, media strategies, and resistance under authoritarian regimes. His current research investigates how Russian opposition actors, forced into exile after 2022, adapt their online strategies, institutional positioning, and international messaging. He is supervised by Prof Yoram Gorlizki and Prof Vera Tolz.

Alex holds the following degrees:
– MA in Public Policy (Distinction), Central European University, Vienna (2024);
– MA in Leadership and Organisation (Merit), Malmö University (2023);
– MSc in Transnational Crime, Justice and Security (Distinction), University of Glasgow (2022);
– LLM in Public and Constitutional Law (Distinction), Higher School of Economics, Moscow (2015).

He also graduated with distinction from the Volga State University of Technology (2012) and was certified as an anti-corruption expert by the Russian Ministry of Justice (2021).

He brings to academia over a decade of cross-sector experience spanning anti-corruption policy, legal expertise, and investigative journalism. From 2016 to 2024, he served as Deputy Director of the Centre for Anti-Corruption Policy within the Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko, Russia’s oldest liberal-democratic party. There, he led more than 200 investigations into corruption, illicit enrichment, and institutional abuse, resulting in antitrust rulings, criminal referrals, and policy reforms.

His work contributed to landmark reports on illegal logging near Lake Baikal, corruption in the 2018 World Cup infrastructure programme, and systemic fraud in Moscow’s urban renewal schemes. He also co-authored legislative proposals on public procurement, conflict of interest, and asset declarations, and played a leading role in drafting key party documents, including The Case of Principle (2018), the 2019 Moscow City Duma election platform, and the policy blueprint 100 Solutions Against Corruption in Russia (co-authored with Alex Karnaukhov). He also represented Yabloko at Russia’s Federal Antimonopoly Service.

Internationally, he completed a compliance-focused internship at the World Bank’s Integrity Vice Presidency and participated in the Open World programme in Washington, D.C. He also contributed to a joint research project between the World Bank and Central European University on informal urban governance in the Western Balkans.

Alex has received several academic and professional awards, including the Chevening Scholarship (UK Government), the Swedish Institute Global Professionals Award, Transparency International Russia’s Audience Award for Investigation of the Year, and national prizes in both journalism and legal scholarship.

He is a member of several academic and professional associations, including the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) and the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA). He also participates in the Standing Group on (Anti-)Corruption and Integrity and the Research Network on Digital Authoritarianism, both hosted by the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR).