INTL 350 (new course code pending) Eurasia: Politics, Economy, and Culture
Şener Aktürk
Assistant Professor of International Relations
Lectures: TBD
Office: CASE 145
Office Hours: Wed. 2:00-4:00 pm
Syllabus
Course Description:
This course is designed as a comprehensive introduction to the comparative study of Soviet and Post-Soviet Russian and Eurasian politics. Including four weeks on Soviet politics, followed thematic weeks on various aspects of post-Soviet Russian politics and society, including but not limited to political parties and the parliament, ethnic politics and nationalism, law, media, civil-military relations, economy, demography, foreign policy. Except for a week each dedicated exclusively to post-Soviet Central Asia and Ukraine, the rest of the course uses a regional or global comparative angle in approaching these issues, but with a heavy emphasis on the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia.
Readings:
There are two required textbooks for the course.
Mary McAuley, Soviet Politics, 1917-1991 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992)
Stephen K. Wegren and Dale R. Herspring (eds.), After Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2009)
Requirements:
Quizzes: You will be given a total of 11 quizzes to check whether you read the assigned readings. Quizzes carry 20 percent of the course grade. Your worst quiz will be dropped.
Midterm Exams: There will be a midterm exam that covers the readings from the first half of the semester.
Final Exam: Final exam will be related to the course in its entirety, but will be weighed towards the readings from the second half of the semester.
Midterm Exam / 40% / The midterm will be 2 hours long and will not be during regular lecture hours; exact date to be announced by the RegistrarFinal Exam / 40% / The final will be 2 hours long and will not be during regular lecture hours; exact date to be announced by the Registrar
Quizzes / 20% / 11 times during the semester; the worst one will be dropped
Grading Scale:
A (94% and above)
A- 90, 91, 92, 93%
B+ 87, 88, 89%
B 84, 85, 86%
B- 80, 81, 82, 83%
C+ 77, 78, 79%
C 74, 75, 76%
C- 70, 71, 72, 73%
D+ 67, 68, 69%
D (between 60 and 66%)
F (59% and below)
Course Outline & Reading List
Week 1. Introduction: Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet Union under Lenin, 1917-1924
Mary McAuley, Soviet Politics, pp.1-33.
Week 2. Stalin and Stalinism in the Soviet Union, 1924-1953
Mary McAuley, Soviet Politics, pp.34-61.
Yuri Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism”, Slavic Review, v.53, pp.414-452 (1994)
Week 3. Soviet Union under Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko, 1953-1985
Mary McAuley, Soviet Politics, pp.62-88
Week 4. Gorbachev’s Reforms and the End of the Soviet Union, 1985-1991
Mary McAuley, Soviet Politics, pp.89-123
Valerie Bunce, “Rethinking Recent Democratization: Lessons from the Postcommunist
Experience”, World Politics, Volume 55, Number 2, January 2003, pp. 167-192.
Keith Darden and Anna Gryzmala-Busse, “The Great Divide: Literacy, Nationalism, and
the Communist Collapse” World Politics, Vol.59, No.1, Oct. 2006, pp.83-115.
Week 5. Russia under Yeltsin
Olga Kryshtanovskaya and Stephen White, “From Soviet Nomenklatura to Russian
Elite,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.48, No.5, pp.711-733.
Vadim Volkov, “Violent Entrepreneurship in Post-Communist Russia,” Europe-Asia
Studies, Vol.51, No.5, 1999, pp.741-754.
Tony Wood, “The Case for Chechnya,” New Left Review, vol.30, 2004, pp.5-36.
Week 6. Post-Soviet Russian Politics: Leadership and the Parliament
Richard Sakwa, “Political Leadership,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.17-38.
Thomas F. Remington, “Parliament and the Dominant Party Regime,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.39-58.
Week 7. Post-Soviet Russian Politics: Law and the Media
Kathryn Hendley, “The Law in Post-Putin Russia,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.83-108.
Maria Lipman and Michael McFaul, “The Media and Political Developments,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.109-132.
Week 8. Post-Soviet Russian Economy: Organized Crime and the Oligarchs
Peter Rutland, “The Oligarchs and Economic Development, “ in After Putin’s Russia, pp.159-182
Louise Shelley, “Crime, Organized Crime, and Corruption,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.183-198
Week 9. Post-Soviet Russian Society: Demographic Decline and the Agriculture
Timothy Heleniak, “Russia’s Population Perils,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.133-158
Stephen K. Wegren, “Agriculture in the Late Putin Period and Beyond,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.199-222
Week 10. Ethnicity, National Identity, and the Regions in Post-Soviet Russia
Sener Akturk, “Passport Identification and Nation-Building in Post-Soviet Russia,” Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol.26, No.2 (October-December 2010), pp.314-341.
Nikolai Petrov and Darrell Slider, “The Regions under Putin and After,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.59-82.
Week 11. Post-Soviet Russian Military and Foreign Policy
Dale R. Herspring, “Putin, Medvedev, and the Russian Military,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.265-290.
Andrei P. Tsygankov, “Russia’s Foreign Policy,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.223-242
Week 12. International Relations of Russia, Turkey, and Central Asia
Samuel P. Huntington, “Clash of Civilizations?”, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1993
Sener Akturk, “Turkish-Russian Relations After the Cold War, 1992-2002,” Turkish Studies, Vol.7, No.3, September 2006, pp.337-364.
Gregory Gleason, “Russia and Central Asia’s Multivector Foreign Policies,” in After Putin’s Russia, pp.243-264
Week 13. Politics and Society in Post-Soviet Central Asia
Kathleen Collins, “The Logic of Clan Politics: Evidence from the Central Asian
Trajectories,” World Politics, Vol.56, No.2 (Jan. 2004), pp.224-261.
Week 14. Politics and Society in Post-Soviet Ukraine
Alfred Stepan, “Ukraine: Improbable Democratic “Nation-State” But Possible
Democratic “State-Nation”?”, Post-Soviet Affairs, Vol.21, No.4, Oct-Dec 2005, pp.279-308.
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