POL S 658- FALL 2015
T 1600 @ NH-131
SEMINAR IN POST-COMMUNIST SYSTEMS
Professor Mikhail Alexseev
Office hours: Tuesdays 1315-1545 & by appointment, NH-127
alexseev@mail.sdsu.edu
This course uses a comparative-historical approach to examine political institutions and behavior
in Eurasia—an area that during most of the last two centuries was under the rule of the Russian
Empire and the Soviet Union. We will first examine the communist legacies common to all postSoviet states and then study how these states diverged since the Soviet Union collapsed. In
addition to providing a wealth of granular detail on how post-Soviet systems work, the course
will explore fundamental empirical and theoretical puzzles in comparative politics. They concern
the rise and decline of states, categorization of political systems and regimes, authoritarianism
and democratization, communism, nationalism, civil war, insurgency, identity politics, and
ethnoreligious violence. Additionally, throughout the semester, we will track developments in
the Russia-Ukraine conflict as a special case study that brings these big issues into sharp relief.
Your primary learning objectives are (a) to understand and memorize the maximum amount of
factual details about the workings of the dominant Soviet government institutions and the
institutions of most Soviet successor states; (b) to sharpen your understanding of theoretical
explanations of the rise and fall of the Soviet Union and the differentiation of post-communist
systems presented in your required readings; (c) to compare and contrast the influence of
international-level vs. domestic-level determinants of state formation and institutional change in
the region; (d) to develop awareness of the effects of research design on key conclusions of
scholarly studies; (e) to improve your appreciation and the ability of interpreting a wide range of
qualitative and quantitative methods widely used in contemporary research on post-communist
systems; (f) to use theory, history, and scenario-planning methodology to predict future
trajectories of post-communist systems; and (f) to improve your analytic writing skills. Finally,
you have a meta-objective, without which none of the above can be achieved: attend all class
meetings and engage in all class activities.
Required Readings
I. BOOKS (available at Amazon. com and ordered through the Aztec Bookstore):
Mikhail A. Alexseev, ed., Center-Periphery Conflict in Post-Soviet Russia: A Federation
Imperiled, St. Martin’s Press, 1999.
Mary McAuley, Soviet Politics 1917-1991. Oxford University Press, 1992.
Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story, HarperCollins, 1990.
Peter Baker and Susan Glasser, Kremlin Rising: Vladimir Putin’s Russia and the End of
Revolution. Scribner, 2005.
Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine, Oxford
University Press, 1987.
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Karen Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? Simon & Schuster, 2015.
Maria Lipman and Nikolay Petrov, Russia in 2020: Scenarios for the Future, Carnegie
Endowment, 2011. [e-BOOKS SDSU]
Edward Lucas, The New Cold War: Putin’s Russia and the Threat to the West (Updated),
Palgrave Macmillan 2014.
Henry Hale, Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective,
Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Stephen E. Hanson, Time and Revolution. North Carolina University Press, 1997.
Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000. Oxford, 2001
Richard Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923,
Revised Edition. Harvard University Press, 1997. (or any earlier edition)
Mikhail Voslensky, Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class, Doubleday, 1984.
Daniel Yergin and Thane Gusthafson, Russia 2010.
II. OTHER SOURCES:
◊
All readings listed under Schedule of Readings and Activities under the weekly reading
assignments are required.
◊
Evidence of regular reading on post-Soviet politics in at least one of these sources:
--The Economist
--The New York Times
--The Washington Post
--BBC World Service
Grade Components
Attendance
Class activities and presentations
Final course paper
20%
20%
60%
Class activities will include (but will not be limited to) question-and-answer sessions, student
presentations followed by discussions/debates, small-group/“task force” projects, postings on BB
Discussion Groups; short writing projects, and miscellaneous small analytic assignments.
Attendance score will be calculated as a percentage of class meetings you attended (minus one for
gratis absences);* participation score will be calculated as a percentage of completed/submitted
class assignments—if the latter exceed the average in scope of the material coverage, additional
bonus points will be earned.
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*One absence is allowed without explanation at no loss of points; above that, absences do not
earn credit regardless of circumstances; partial makeup for class activities will be available in
case of absence due to properly documented force majeur circumstances.
Grade Scales for Tests, Papers and Final Grade Assignment:
95-100 = A
73-76 = C
90-94 = A70-72 = C-
87-89 = B +
67-69 = D+
83-86 = B
63-66 = D
80-82 = B60-62 = D-
77-79 = C+
< 59 = F
For criteria satisfying the grade ranges see http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/~digger/305/grades.html.
NOTE: Plagiarism (copying other people’s work without attribution and presenting it as your
own) is unacceptable. Engaging in plagiarism on any test will result in an automatic “F” grade
for the course.
Blackboard at SDSU
You will use SDSU Blackboard to access announcements, the syllabus, readings, and
assignments online; to participate in discussion forums; and submit the final exam.
FOR STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
If you are a student with a disability and believe you will need accommodations for this class, it
is your responsibility to contact Student Disability Services at (619) 594-6473. To avoid any
delay in the receipt of your accommodations, you should contact Student Disability Services as
soon as possible. Please note that accommodations are not retroactive, and that accommodations
based upon disability cannot be provided until you have presented your instructor with an
accommodation letter from Student Disability Services. Your cooperation is appreciated.
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CLASS MEETINGS AND READING SCHEDULE
Except for the first day of class, your best bet is to do all your required readings prior to the class
meetings of the week for which they are assigned. Required readings are listed below under each
week’s topic. Please bring the required readings to class on the ways when they are assigned or
required by the syllabus.
W1--08/25:
Historical-Comparative Analysis: States and Institutional Legacies
-Course introduction
--Grigore Pop-Eleches, “Historical Legacies and Post-Communist Regime Change,”
Journal of Politics 69:4 (November 2007) [Library Databases]
--Russia: a country study, Federal Research Division, Library of Congress
Edited by Glenn E. Curtis (Research Completed July 1996) –up to 1917
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/rutoc.html
PART I:
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SOVIET UNION
W2--09/01:
The Communist Party
--Pipes, The Formation of the Soviet Union (all chapters required; special emphasis
on chapters 1-3 and 6)
--McAuley, Soviet Politics 1917-1991, Ch. 1, 2.
W3--09/08:
The KGB
--Andrew and Gordievsky, KGB, chapters:
(The evolution of the KGB; Tsarist origins (1565-1917); the Cheka, counterrevolution and the "Lockhart Conspiracy" (1917-21); Stalin and spy-mania (192638); the takeover of Eastern Europe (1944-8); Cold War - the Stalinist phase
(1945-53); the decline and fall of Detente (1972-84); the Gorbachev era (1985-)
--McAuley, Ch. 3.
W4--09/15:
The Terror and the Empire
-Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow.
-McAuley, Ch. 4.
W5—09/22: The Bureaucracy
--Voslensky, Nomenklatura (particular focus on Khrushchev and Brezhnev’s
Dneproptrovsk clan)
--McAuley, Ch. 5, 6.
W6—09/29: State Ideology
--Hanson, Time and Revolution,
--McAuley, Ch. 7,8.
W7—10/06: The Military-Industrial Complex
--Kotkin, Armaggedon Averted
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--George F. Kennan (X), “Sources of Soviet Conduct,” Foreign Affairs (1947)
(BB)
--George Kolt, The Soviet Cauldron, NIE 1991. In Russia Watch: Essays in
Honor of George Kolt, eds. Eugene Rumer and Celeste Wallander, CSIS (2007),
pp. 84-92. (BB)
--Andrew Barnes, “Do We Have A Winner? Disentangling the Competing
Explanations for the End of the Soviet System,” Program on New Approaches to
Russian Security (PONARS) Working Paper, Jan 2012 (BB or:
http://ponarseurasia.org/blog/publications/working-papers/)
Part II.
POST-COMMUNIST TRAJECTORIES
W8—10/13: Secessionism and State Collapse
-- Alexseev, Federation Imperiled (Ch. 1, 3, 4, 6)
-- Hale, “The Makeup and Breakup of Ethnofederal States: Why Russia Survives
Where the USSR Fell,” Perspectives on Politics (2005) 3, no. 1 55-70 (BB)
-- Daniel Treisman, “Russia’s ‘Ethnic Revival’” World Politics (1997)
(ProjectMUSE)
W9—10/20: Patronal Resurgence
Hale, Patronal Politics, Ch. 1, 2, 4-6
W10—10/27: Authoritarian Re-Consolidation at the Former Soviet Core
--Dawisha, Putin’s Kleptocracy, Ch. 2-5
--Baker & Glasser, Kremlin Rising, Ch. 2-4, 12, 13.
--“The Long Life of Homo Sovieticus,” The Economist, Dec 10-16, 2011.
VIDEO: “Putin’ Way,” Frontline (2015)
(http://video.pbs.org/video/2365401766/)
W11—11/03: Revolutions and Liberalization
Hale, Patronal Politics, Ch. 7-9, 12.
Alfred Stepan, “Ukraine: Improbable Democratic ‘Nation-State’ But Possible
Democratic ‘State-Nation’”? Post-Soviet Affairs, 2005, 21, 4, pp. 279–308
(EBSCO)
W12—11/10: Neo-Imperial Resurgence
--Lucas, The New Cold War, Ch. 1, 4-9
--Mikhail Alexseev. "Russia's 'Cold Peace' Consensus: Transcending the
Presidential Election," The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs 21:1 (SpringSummer 1997): 33-49.
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--Andrei Soldatov & Irina Borogan, “Russia’s New Nobility,” Foreign Affairs
(Sep/Oct 2010)
W13—11/17: Political System Categorization
Freedom House, Nations in Transit
(https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/FH_NIT2015_06.06.15_FINAL.pdf)
FINAL PAPER TOPIC AND INDEPENDENT STUDY DISCUSSION
W14—11/24: From Analysis to Prediction: Eurasia-2020
INDEPENDENT STUDY (No class meeting; online interactive consulting)
--Yegin and Gusthafson, Russia 2010
--Lipman & Petrov, Russia 2020 (e-Books)
W15—12/02: The Eurasian Union: Its Rise and Prospects
--Putin’s address on Crimea annexation, Mar 18, 2014 (http://eng.kremlin.ru/news/6889)
--Nicu Popescu, “The Eurasian Union: The Real, the Imaginary, and the Likely,” Chaillot
Paper No. 132, European Union Institute for Security Studies (September 2014). (BB)
--Nikolas K. Gvosdev, “Russia's Eurasian Union: Part of a Master Plan,” The National
Interest, 7 Jun 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/russias-eurasian-union-partmaster-plan-10619
--Peter Pomerantsev, “How Putin Is Reinventing Warfare,” Foreign Policy, 05May14,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/05/how_putin_is_reinventing_warfare
--“Ukraine and Russia: War by Any Other Name,” The Economist, 5 Jul 2014,
http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21606290-russia-has-effect-already-invadedeastern-ukraine-question-how-west-will
--Alexey Eremenko, “3rd 'Gas War' Looming Between Russia, Ukraine, EU,” Moscow
Times 13 Aug 2014, http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/3rd-gas-warlooming-between-russia-ukraine-eu/505071.html
--Vladimir Socor, “Russia’s Master Plan to Break the Trans-Atlantic Alliance,” WSJ,
20Apr2015 (http://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-master-plan-to-break-the-trans-atlanticalliance-1429575502)
--Ivan Krastev, “Europe’s Shattered Dream of Order: How Putin is Disrupting the Atlantic
Alliance,” Foreign Affairs (May/June 2015): 48-58 (ProQuest Research)
--Mikhail Alexseev, “Backing the USSR 2.0: Russia’s Ethnic Minorities and
Expansionist Ethnic Russian Nationalism,” forthcoming chapter, University of Edinburg
Press, book project on Russia’s new nationalism. (BB)
W16—12/08: PRESENTATION OF FINAL PAPER OUTLINES, COURSE OVERVIEW
12/15/2015 @ 1800
FINAL COURSE PAPER DUE
(SUBMIT UNDER TURNITIN ASSIGNMENT @ BLACKBOARD ONLY—submissions in
other formats will not be read unless mandated by special circumstances such as student
disability):
Online final exam day class discussion forums on Blackboard will be open during the final exam hours.
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