Assistant Professor of Organizational Studies
With Pitzer Since: 2016
Field Group: Organizational Studies
Campus Address: Broad Hall 107
Phone: 909.607.1266
Email: barbara_junisbai@pitzer.edu
Office Hours: Wednesday 11:00 am – 1:00 pm & Friday 11:00 am-12:00 pm, or by appointment
Educational Background
PhD, Political Science, Indiana University
MIS, Information Science, Indiana University
BA, International Relations, San Francisco State University
Research Interests
Comparative political organizations and institutions, authoritarianism, democratization, post-Soviet politics and society, learning-centered pedagogy and academic assessment
Selected Publications
“Are Youth Different? The Nazarbayev Generation and Public Opinion in Kazakhstan,” accepted for publication in Problems of Postcommunism. With Azamat Junisbai.
“What Makes ‘Ardent Democrats’ in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan?” PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo No. 489 (October 2017). Available at: http://www.ponarseurasia.org/memo/what-makes-ardent-democrats-kazakhstan-and-kyrgyzstan. With Azamat Junisbai and Christopher Whitsel.
“Two Countries, Five Years: Islam in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan through the Lens of Public Opinion Surveys,” Central Asian Affairs vol. 4, no. 1: 1-25. 2017. Lead article with Azamat Junisbai and Baurzhan Zhussupov. 2017.
“A Pragmatic and Flexible Approach to Information Literacy: Findings from a Three-Year Study of Faculty-Librarian Collaboration,” The Journal of Academic Librarianship, vol. 42, no. 5: 604-611. 2016. With Sara Lowe and Natalie Tagge.
“Mass Media Consumption in Post—Soviet Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan: The View from Below,” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post—Soviet Democratization, vol. 23, no. 3: 233-256. 2015. Lead article with Azamat Junisbai and Nicola Ying Fry ’16.
“The Promise and Potential Pitfalls of a ‘Learning—Centered’ Approach to Creative Social Inquiry: Lessons Learned from an Undergraduate Seminar on Authoritarianism through Literature and Film,” Journal of Political Science Education, vol. 10, no. 3: 331-351. 2014.
“Improbable but Potentially Pivotal Oppositions: Privatization, Capitalists, and Political Contestation in the Post—Soviet Autocracies,” Perspectives on Politics, vol. 10, no. 4: 891-916. 2012. [Impact factor of 1.963; ranked #10 in political science]
“Oligarchs and Ownership: The Role of Financial—Industrial Groups in Controlling Kazakhstan’s ‘Independent’ Media,” After the Czars and Commissars: The Press in Post—Soviet Authoritarian Central Asia, eds. Eric Freedman and Richard Shafer. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. 2011.
For links to Professor Junisbai’s publications, please visit Scholarship@Claremont, a service of The Claremont Colleges Library.
Awards and Honors
Member, Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia). 2017-present.
Institute of Museum and Library Services National Leadership Demonstration grant to assess first-year seminar collaboration with The Claremont Colleges Library on first-year information literacy through an Assessment in Action project. 2013-14.
National Science Foundation grant for Value Systems in Comparative Perspective research project. $100,000. 2012-14.
Greenough Award for Best Dissertation of the Year, Indiana University Political Science Department. 2010.
Additional Information
Curriculum Vitae [PDF]
