Maria Koinova
Professor in International Relations
Bridging Diaspora Politics and The Global Order
Email: m dot koinova at warwick dot ac dot uk
Tel: +44 (0)24 765 24632
Room: E2.11
Feedback hours, Term 1/2025-26
Mondays, 11:00-12:00 - in person
Tuesdays,16:00-17:00 - online
Engaging the Global Ukrainian Community for Ukraine's Recovery
Prof. Dr. Maria Koinova is Professor of International Relations in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. She serves as Deputy Editor of the Migration Studies Journal (Oxford University Press), and is an elected member of the Executive Council of the Migration and Citizenship section of the American Political Science Association (APSA). Since 2023, she has been Principal Investigator of a series of impact-oriented projects developing a programme "Engaging the Global Ukrainian Community for Ukraine's Recovery: Democracy and Human Rights Dimensions," conducted in collaboration with OSCE-ODIHR and ICMPD and other organisations, and supported by the Faculty of Social Sciences, Research England’s Policy Support Fund, and the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account. Her most recent project (2025–2026) explores how socially responsible diaspora entrepreneurship across six European countries engages with local and regional governance in Ukraine.
Recently, Prof. Koinova was a research fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (2023), participated in the governing board of the EU Jean Monnet network "Between the EU and Russia" (2018-2022), and was the Principal investigator of a research project on "Polycentric Governance of Transit and Irregular Migration" (2019-2020) sponsored by the Centre for Global Cooperation Research in Germany. She successfully completed as Principal Investigator a large-scale European Research Council Starting Grant Project “Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty” (2012-2017).
Koinova held academic positions at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (2001-2004), Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies (2004-2005), and Center for European Studies (2011), Cornell’s Government Department (2007-2008), Dartmouth’s Dickey Center for International Understanding (2008-2009), the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. (summers 2006, 2007), European University Institute (1999-2005, Ph.D.), Uppsala University (2013), Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (2012), Kroc Center for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame in the USA (2018), and tenure-track faculty positions at the University of Amsterdam (2009-2012) and American University of Beirut (2005-2006).
Research Interests
Maria Koinova’s research spans international relations, comparative politics, and international political sociology, with a focus on how migration, diasporas, and ethno-national diversity shape conflict and post-conflict political development. Her work addresses ethno-national and intra-state conflict, contested sovereignty, and the international politics of migration, with a regional focus on the EU’s neighbourhood.
In 2023, Prof. Koinova advised OSCE-ODIHR on engaging the Ukrainian diaspora in Ukraine’s reconstruction. A major training in Warsaw (2024), involving 36 stakeholders from governments, international organisations, and the diaspora—hosted by OSCE-ODIHR and co-organised with ICMPD—led to the formation of a policy-relevant network across the UK, five EU countries, and EU institutions in Brussels. This initiative resulted in a co-published policy report with ICMPD (2025), her keynote at the inaugural Diaspora Lab-IOM at the Ukraine Recovery Conference (Rome, 2025), and her joining a task force to build a IOM-driven diaspora coalition for Ukraine.
In 2018, Prof. Koinova received a research grant from the Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg to lead a project titled Polycentric Governance of Transit Migration. The project explored informality, polycentric governance, and their regional dimensions within the European neighbourhood, and to developing of theories on relational power in polycentric governance. It led to the publication of articles in International Studies Review and Review of International Studies, as well as a special issue she edited, Governing Transit and Irregular Migration: Informality and Formal Policies, published in the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies in 2025.
In 2011, Prof. Koinova was awarded a prestigious European Research Council Starting Grant for a five-year project, Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty. From 2012 to 2017, she led a team of four researchers investigating how conflict-generated diasporas in Europe mobilize transnationally and influence contested states in the Balkans, Caucasus, and Middle East. The project combined qualitative research on six diaspora groups across five EU countries with a unique cross-country survey of 3,000 individuals from Iraqi, Kurdish, and Palestinian communities. As part of the project, Koinova conducted 300 interviews for her book Diaspora Entrepreneurs and Contested States (Oxford University Press, 2021). The project also led to her role as single or lead editor of three special issues in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2018), International Political Science Review (2018), and Ethnic and Racial Studies (2019), alongside numerous articles in leading journals, European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Review, International Political Sociology, and others.
The ERC project built on Prof. Koinova’s earlier research into why ethno-national conflicts vary in intensity and persist despite international resolution efforts. Her book, Ethnonationalist Conflict in Postcommunist States: Varieties of Governance in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Kosovo (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), argues that violence stems from informally institutionalized dynamics formed during a critical period and sustained through specific causal mechanisms. These path-dependent processes involve local actors as well as international ones, including states, organizations, and kin-states. The book was recommended by Choice (2014) and reviewed in Foreign Affairs, Journal of Peace Research, Perspectives on Politics, Political Studies Review, and ten other academic journals.
Teaching and supervision
Koinova taught courses on International Security, Comparative Politics, Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict, Non-state Actors in International Relations, Politics of Post-industrial States, and Europe, Democracy, and the State.
In 2025-2026 she is teaching a module on "Russia in World Politics" (T1), "International Politics of Migration, Refugees and Diaspora" (T2), and seminars in "Contemporary Themes in Comparative Politics" (T2).
Prof. Koinova is interested in supervising Ph.D. and MA students, and collaborating with post-doctoral fellows and faculty members who work on 1) migration, diaspora and displacement and their relationships to conflict and postconflict zones, as well as on 2) the EU neighbourhood, Ukraine, post-communist and post-Soviet politics.