Democratic Decline

Daniel Hegedüs is a senior visiting fellow with GMF and deputy director of the Institute for European Politics (IEP) in Berlin.

His research focuses on democratic and rule-of-law backsliding within the EU, the intersection of autocratization and foreign policy, and the European and foreign policies of the Visegrad countries.

Hegedüs previously served as GMF’s regional director for Central Europe and held variousresearch and lecturing positions at institutions including the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Freedom House, the Institute for Eastern European Studies at the Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, and Eötvös Loránd University.

Hegedüs studied political science, history, and European law, is the author of more than 80 academic and policy papers, and is a frequent contributor to international media.

Olena Prokopenko is a senior fellow at GMF. She formerly managed Eastern Neighborhood programs at the European Endowment for Democracy in Brussels and served as a development adviser at the Danish embassy in Kyiv. 

Prokopenko previously chaired international relations at RPR Coalition, Ukraine’s largest civil society platform, and advised Ukraine’s finance minister on donor relations. She served as a civil society expert for the UN Development Programme and the Council of Europe, and worked as a government relations manager at Hill+Knowlton Strategies.

Prokopenko is a co-founder of the Transatlantic Task Force for Ukraine and a government relations trainer at the Kyiv School of Economics. Her analysis of Russia’s war in Ukraine and Ukraine’s reform progress is regularly featured intop international media, including the BBC, Bloomberg, MSNBC, Al Jazeera, TIME magazine, Newsweek, and Le Monde.

Prokopenko is a lawyer by training and an alumna of the US State Department’s Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program. She holds a master’s degree in political science from Western Illinois University.