Ilya Matveev is a political scientist. His background is in political theory and the dissertation is about the nexus between politics and scientific/theoretical knowledge. However, currently, he is engaged in empirical research on the Russian political economy in a broad sense: state-business relations, welfare state policies, economic inequality, state capitalist policies and international ambitions of Russian companies. Russian politics and political economy are his main research area. Together with Ilya Budraitskis, he co-hosts a Russian-language podcast Political Diary.