NEWSLINK: “Russia’s ‘Brain Drain’ and the Prospects for Regime Transformation” – Russian and Eurasian Politics/Gordon M. Hahn

“The U.S. government … is claiming a sharp spike in asylum claims from Russian citizens, hitting a 24-year high in 2017 …. One of the main drivers of revolutionary forms of democratic regime transformation, according to contemporary social science, is the lack of sufficient social mobility for middle class youth that often emerges in authoritarian countries with high or rising levels of higher education. This factor is a potential driver of regime change in Russia. However, another factor in Russia – a significant rate of ‘brain drain’ – deprives this factor of its potential robustness. This factor is usually ignored because brain drain analyses universally emphasize the socioeconomic developmental implications of brain drain ….”