School of Asian Studies

Publications

• Book

  Kharina O.

  Pakistan-Russia Relations. A Comprehensive Historical and Strategic Analysis

  In the shifting sands of contemporary geopolitics, few bilateral relationships have evolved as quietly yet significantly as the one between Pakistan and Russia. Once distanced by ideological fault-lines and the strategic rigidity of the Cold War, these two pivotal states have, over the last three decades, consciously pursued a path of rapprochement, deepening mutual respect, and growing cooperation across multiple domains. The Pakistan-Russta evolving engagement is emblematic of the broader trend in global affairs - one that places primacy on multi-vector diplomacy, regional integration, and recalibration of long-standing relationships in pursuit of shared interests.

  Islamabad: Centre for Strategic Perspectives. Institute of Strategic Studies, 2025.

• Article

  Andrey Korotayev, Andrey Zhdanov, Julia Zinkina et al.

  Why Do Revolutions Tend to Become Less Violent? Some Explanations of the Global Trend

  Revolutionary events are increasingly likely to take unarmed forms. This trend has been observed over the past 120 years as a result of the World System transformation, wherein most societies increased their GDP per capita, experienced the spread of modern formal education, and moved from predominantly rural and very young populations to mostly urban and older ones, whereas autocratic regimes in most societies gave way to anocratic and democratic ones. This research employs binary logistic and principal component regression, as well as leave-one-out PCA to estimate the relative contribution of different modernization components to this trend, suggesting
  that a particularly significant contribution was produced by the explosive global proliferation of education and the pronounced shift toward more democratic political systems. Global economic growth also contributed to this trend rather substantially. In the meantime, the contribution of urbanization and global aging appears to be much
  less pronounced (though still statistically significant).

  
  
  

  Comparative Sociology. 2025. Vol. 24. P. 1-51.

• Book chapter

  Kharina O.

  Post-Soviet Realignment: Key Milestones in Pakistan–Russia Bilateral Relations

  The post-Cold War international order has bes characterized by significant shifts in the foreign polic strategies of nations, as global geopolitical dynamics underwent profound transformation. For Pakistan and Russia, the end of the Soviet Union marked a pivotal turning point providing an opportunity to recalibrate their historically complicated relationship, The Cold War had positioned Pakistan and Russia on opposing sides of the ideological divide. 

  In bk.: Pakistan-Russia Relations. A Comprehensive Historical and Strategic Analysis. Islamabad: Centre for Strategic Perspectives. Institute of Strategic Studies, 2025. Ch. 2. P. 18-36.

• Working paper

  Ustyuzhanin V., Zinkina J. V., Korotayev A.

  Extended Family Structures Exert a Causal Influence on Fertility

  Research of the impact of kin alloparenting on reproduction mainly focuses on mother’s parents and parents-in-law. The impact on fertility of extended families and the alloparental help with childcare they can provide has received much less attention. Moreover, there is an important lacuna in the existing studies of this problem, as it is mostly approached through correlational studies, while the presence of a causal link remains unclear. Using an instrumental variables approach, we demonstrate that prevalence of extended family structures exert a causal influence on fertility. A one standard-deviation increase in prevalence of extended families is associated with approximately 1.07 additional children per woman. These results highlight that family structure is not only statistically significant but also demographically consequential in shaping fertility outcomes.

  SocArXiv. Soc. SocArXiv, 2025