166-030 Dictatorships, Democracies and Transition: Russian and East European Politics

Note

Availability

Credit Points

Coordinator

Prerequisites

Usually 25 points of first year Politics subject. Students with only 12.5 points in Politics may apply to the second/third year coordinator.

Semester

Contact

Subject Description

Explores the reasons for the collapse of communist power and the emergence of post-communism in what used to be Eastern Europe and the USSR. Issues studied include democratisation, marketisation and privatisation, gender, nationalism and ethnic problems, and the environment. Both the problems and the achievements of the still fragile post-communist countries will be analysed. On completion of this subject students should be able to: provide a comprehensive analysis of the numerous explanations of the 1989-91 East European Revolutions, and the 1991 collapse of the USSR; prove a brief analysis of the political, social and economic systems of the eight East European states and the USSR up to 1989; prove an up-to-date analysis of the various problems and achievements of both transitional- and post-communism in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; briefly compare and contrast communism as a political theory with communism as a power-system; consider gender and ethnic issues of both late communism and early post-communism; assess what post-communism might mean as an abstract concept.

Assessment

An essay of 2500 words, and a tutorial paper of 1500 words.

Prescribed Texts

A subject reader will be available.