Eastern Europe since 1989: Post-communist Transition and European Integration

Monographic course, 16 hrs Lecturer Mykola Riabchuk Ukrainian Catholic University Ukrainian Center for Cultural Studies Spring 2010 [email protected]

The Course

The course examines trajectories of development of East European countries that, in 1989-1991, overthrew communist dictatorship and opted for substantially different political, social, and economic directions. Students will be encouraged, in each case, to examine the appropriatness of various theories of democratic transition and to discover their own explanation for specific developments, investigating to what extent they are determined by the past experience of the country, its political culture and social capital and to what extent they are determined, here and now, by the people's will and their leaders' skill, comprehensive reforms, domestic actors and international assistance. Special attention will be paid to the role of European organizations, primarily of the European Union, in promoting institutional changes in many but not all postcommunist states. Background reading (optional, referencial) Norman Davies, Europe: a history. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Tony Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945. Penguin Press, 2005. Halecki, Oskar. Boderlands of Western Civilization. New York, 1952 (optional, for reference). http://historicaltextarchive.com/books.php?op=viewbook&bookid=1 Robin Okey, The Demise of Communist East Europe. 1989 in Context. London: Arnold, 2004. Robert Weiner, Change in Eastern Europe. Westport & London: Praeger, 1994.

Schedule

Seminar 1 Introduction to class Terms & categories Eastern Europe: historical background Eastern Europe as an ideological concept Power of discourse & traps of essentialization

Readings (optional, but selected fragments – ca. 20 pages total – will be mandatory, by the next day) Steven W. Sowards, Twenty-Five Lectures on Modern Balkan History. Lecture 2: "Asia begins at the Landstrasse:" Comparing Eastern European and European histories (1996) http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lecture2.html Wolf, Larry. Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of Enlightenment. Stanford CA, 1994; pp. 1–16. Todorova, Maria. Imagining the Balkans. New York & Oxford, 1997; pp. 1–20.

Seminar 2 Myth of Central Europe Controversy over European exclusion Imagined belonging: inventing ‘European’ identity in East European Borderlands Post-communist transformation as a ‘return to Europe’: identity and reforms Coming to terms with East/West differences

1 Central versus Eastern Europe. http://science.jrank.org/pages/11015/Regions-Regionalism-Eastern-Europe-Central- versus-Eastern-Europe.html Todorova, Maria. Imagining the Balkans. New York & Oxford, 1997; pp. 140–160. John-Paul Himka, “What's in a Region? (Notes on ‘Central Europe’),” e-HABSBURG, 2002. Lonnie Johnson, Response to J.-P.Himka, ibid. Andriy Zayarniuk, "On The Frontiers of Central Europe: Ukrainian Galicia at the Turn of the Millennium," Spaces of Identity, no. 1 (2001); http://www.yorku.ca/soi/Vol_1/_HTML/Zayarnyuk.html Stephen Shulman, “National Identity and Public Support for Political and Economic Reform in Ukraine,” Slavic Review, Vol. 64, No. 1. (Spring, 2005), pp. 59-87. George Schoepflin, “The Political Traditions of Eastern Europe,” Daedalus, vol. 119, no. 1 (Winter 1990), pp. 55–88.

Seminar 3 The End of Communism: Central Europe, the Balkans, and the USSR Post-communist transition: revising the paradigm Hybrid regimes: semi-democratic or semi-authoritarian? Political reforms: democracy versus liberalism Economic reforms: ‘shock therapy’ versus gradualism

George Schoepflin, Politics in Eastern Europe, 1945–1992. Oxford UK & Cambridge US: Blackwell, 1993, pp. 224– 255, 256–300. Steven W. Sowards, Twenty-Five Lectures on Modern Balkan History. Lecture 24: The failure of Balkan Communism and the causes of the Revolutions of 1989 (1996) http://www.lib.msu.edu/sowards/balkan/lect24.htm Yegor Gaidar, a lecture at the American Enterprise Institute on November 13, 2006, transcript http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID.1420/transcript.asp Thomas Carothers, "The End of the Transition Paradigm," Journal of Democracy 13, no. 1 (2002): 5–21; and the follow-up discussion in Journal of Democracy 13, no. 3 (2002): 5–38. Taras Kuzio, “Transition in Post-Communist States: Triple or Quadruple?,” Politics, vol. 21 no.3 (September 2001), pp. 169-178. Larry Diamond, “Thinking about Hybrid Regimes,” Journal of Democracy, vol.13, no.2 (2002), pp.21–34. Fareed Zakaria, “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Foreign Affairs, 76 (November 1997), pp. 22–42. http://www.fareedzakaria.com/ARTICLES/other/democracy.html Thomas Carothers, “Misunderstanding Gradualism,” Journal of Democracy, vol.18, no.3 (2007), pp.18–22. Fredo Arias-King, “Reform: The Perils of Being Weak,” Transitions Online, 17 August 2007.

Seminar 4 Post-communist Russia: a normal country? Post-Soviet republics: in ‘Big Brother’s’ shadow The ‘new Russian assertiveness’ – a euphemism and its meanings for the ‘Near Abroad’ and for the West Is Putin's Russian becoming a fascist state?

Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman, “A Normal Country,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2004. Rajan Menon & Alexander Motyl, “The Myth of Russian Resurgence,” March 2007 http://the-american- interest.com/ai2/article.cfm?Id=258&MId=8 Leon Aron, “The Putin Restoration,” American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Spring 2004, pp. 1–7; http://www.aei.org Richard Pipes, “Flight From Freedom. What Russians Think and Want,” Foreihn Affairs, vol. 83, no. 3 (May-June 2004), pp. 9–15. Arkady Moshes, “Post-Imperial Russia: Emergence and Prospects of Regaining Influence in the Post-Soviet Space,” in Wojciech Kononczuk (ed.), Putin’s Empire (Warsaw: Batory Foundation, 2007), pp. 113–124; www.batory.org.pl Marie Mendras, “Back to the Besieged Fortress?” Ibid., pp. 137–154. Alexander Motyl, “Russland: Volk, Staat und Führer. Elemente eines faschistischen Systems,” Osteuropa, no. 1, 2009. (English original will be provided).

2 Seminar 5 Post-Soviet republics: fledgling democracies or unconsolidated authoritarianisms? Post-Soviet republics: pluralism by default Virtual politics: quasi-democratic rhetoric and manipulation in post-Soviet states ‘Colored’ revolutions

Mykola Riabchuk, “From ‘Dysfunctional’ to ‘Blackmail’ State? Paradoxes of the Post-Soviet Transition.” Annual Wolodymyr George Danyliw Lecture. University of Toronto, CREES, March 15, 2004 Keith Darden, “Blackmail as a Tool of State Domination: Ukraine Under Kuchma,” East European Constitutional Review, vol. 10, nos. 2–3 (2001). Lucan Way, “Authoritarian State Building and the Sources of Regime Competitiveness in the Fourth Wave. The Cases of Belarus, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine, ” World Politics, v.57, no.2 (2005), pp.231–261. Andrew Wilson, “The Nature of Post-Soviet Democracy in Ukraine and Russia.” Fifth Annual Stasiuk-Cambridge Lecture, University of Cambridge, 23 February 2007. Michael McFaul, “The Second Wave of Democratic Breakthroughs in the Post-Communist World: Comparing Serbia 2000, Georgia 2003, Ukraine 2004, and Kyrgyzstan 2005.” Annual Wolodymyr George Danyliw Lecture. University of Toronto, CREES, 2005. Timothy Garton Ash, “Bitter Lemons,” Guardian, December 2, 2004 Vitali Silitski, “Revolutions: Has the Age of Revolutions Ended?” Transitions Online, 13 January 2005

Seminar 6 Path-dependence and social capital in Eastern Europe Social capital, social trust, and social cohesion Civil society in Eastern Europe – before and after communism

Putnam, Robert. Making Democracy Work. Princeton University Press, 1993; pp. 83-91, 121-148, 162–181. Putnam, Robert and Kristin Goss. “Introduction.” In Putnam, Robert (ed.), Democracies in Flux. The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society. Oxford University Press, 2002; pp. 3–19. Fukuyama, Francis. “Culture and Economic Development: Cultural Concerns,” in Smelser, Neil (ed.), Intnl Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol. 5. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2002; pp. 3130-3134. Aberg, Martin. “Putnam's Social Capital Theory Goes East: A Case Study of Western Ukraine and L'viv,” Europe- Asia Studies 52, 2 (2000) 303-313. Petro Kraliuk, “The place where the national idea has worked,” Day Weekly Digest, January 26, 2006. Petr Kopecky, “Civil Society, uncivil society and contentious politics in post-communist Europe,” in Petr Kopecky and Cas Mudde (eds.), Uncivil Society? Contentious politics in post-communist Europe (London & New York: Routledge, 2003), pp. 1–17.

Seminar 7 Politics of memory in post-communist states and problem of decommunization Nationalism, Populism, anti-Semitism, and minority rights in Eastern Europe East Europeans between the EU membership and the EU neighborhood Gender issues and cultural changes in postcommunist Eastern Europe

Vladimir Tismeneanu, Fantasies of Salvation. Democracy, Nationalism, and Myth in Post-Communist Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 111–140. Vladimir Tismeneanu, Fantasies of Salvation. Democracy, Nationalism, and Myth in Post-Communist Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 65–87. Michael Emerson & Gargana Noutcheva, Europeanisation as a Gravity Model of Democratisation, CEPS Working Document, no. 214 (2004); http://shop.ceps.be/BookDetail.php?item_id=1175 Andrew Baruch Wachtel. Remaining relevant after communism : the role of the writer in Eastern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Gillian Pascall and Anna Kwak. Gender regimes in transition in Central and Eastern Europe. Bristol, UK : Policy Press, 2005.

3 Timothy Garton Ash, “Conclusions,” in Sorin Antohi & Vladimir Tismeneanu (eds.), Between Past and Future. The Revolutions of 1989 and Their Aftermath (Budapest: CEU Press, 2000), pp. 395-402.

Final exam (tests)

Grading

Attendance, participation & preparation: 35% Final Exam (test) 65%

I will be grading different components in percentages. Here is how the percentages convert to letter grades:

A+ 96 B+ 84 C+ 72 D+ 60 F less than 56 A 92 B 80 C 68 D 56 A- 88 B- 76 C- 64

Tests The exam (tests) will last two hours and consist of 15 short questions: to briefly identify a term, name, date, or event, and, also, of two short (one-page) essays on the suggested topics. Each short answer will be graded 3% (maximum) and each essay – up to 10%.

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