Zulfiyya Abdurahimova-Carberry is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Ghent University. She graduated with an MA degree in Russian, Eastern Europe, and Central Asian studies from the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. Prior to commencing her MA degree, Zulfiyya was a Visiting Fellow at the Davis Center and the Government Department and has held teaching and research assistantships at the Harvard Kennedy School, the Harvard Extension School, and the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She holds an MA in political science from the University of Muenster in Germany and a BA & MA in European studies from Azerbaijan University of Languages. She is working on a dissertation that compares the democracy promotion policies of the United States and the European Union in Azerbaijan. Her dissertation examines the conditions under which authoritarian regimes reject or engage in democracy promotion by external actors. Her research interests include regime change, democratization, authoritarianism, civil society, and welfare regimes with a special focus on the post-Soviet space and Azerbaijan. In addition to her main research fields, she takes a particular interest in the history and culture of the Jewish minority of Azerbaijan.