Georgiy Syunyaev is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Columbia University (New York, USA) and a Predoctoral Research Fellow in the Institutions and Political Inequality Unit at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. He previously worked as J-PAL Transparency Research Fellow and also received a graduate degree in Economics from Higher School of Economics (Moscow, Russia). His research focuses on the political economy of weak and non-democratic regimes with a regional focus on Post-Soviet Countries. He is specifically interested in government incentives for decentralization as well as the role of mass media in framing responsibility for domestic policy.