• Apply the concepts and theories introduced throughout the course in order to identify, analyze, and assess key issues of economic and political transition in post-Soviet states.
• Identify, analyze and assess economic, political, institutional, and structural causes and consequences of transition in a comparative perspective.
• Apply empirical data and analyze evidence concerning political and economic developments introduced in the course.
• Make a clear, coherent, and well-reasoned analysis of issues in political and economic transition based upon methods in the social sciences and a comprehensive understanding of the theories and approaches introduced in the course.

Course Overview

How and why unions of different states collapse? How has market economy trumped planned economy and how have Western companies ventured into the new terrain with varying success? What led to increased trade and FDI into the (modern) states that emerged upon the Soviet collapse? Why and how some stated ended up becoming ‘captured states’, ‘autocratic states’, ‘unconsolidated democracies’, while others turned into modern capitalist economies with liberal democratic regimes? Can privatization, liberalization and deregulation result in transforming centrally regulated economies into market economies with competitive business environments and steady growth trends? What lessons can we draw from the massive economic, political and social transformation that ensued upon the Soviet collapse? What are the theoretical toolkits that political scientists and economists have to make sense of the massive transformation processes that ensued the fall of the Berlin Wall or the end of the Union of the Soviet Socialists Republics (USSR)? What were the mental frameworks the new political forces in fifteen states could utilize in the reforms of transition? What was the path of transition from the ‘grand’ State into individual sovereign state and what role ideas, institutions, policies and structures played?

This course takes an in-depth look into the processes, actors and institutions that formed different pathways in building modern states with market economies. The cases are drawn from the fifteen post-Soviet states. The notion of ‘transition’ will be tackled to see what it entails and what it offers as an explanatory framework of post-Union massive transformation processes that simultaneously encompassed state-building, civil wars & break-away regional conflicts, hybrid war & regime change, political and economic institution formation, social transformation and accession into Western and Eurasian unions among others.

After thirty years from that historical event that brought a one-party rule political system with a centrally planned economy to the end, we stand with a fifteen independent states that emerged on the ruins of the collapsed ‘grand’ State. The course will discuss theoretical frameworks and empirical evidence on why and how countries such as the Baltic states are currently the members of the North-Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union, while the Central Asian countries, Eastern European states and the South Caucasus region is still battling with instable political and economic institutions and repressive regimes. Lastly, the course aims to bring comparative politics and regional studies together with international business studies in its effort to study political and economic transformation processes and factors in depth.

Course Content and Structure

The course introduces students to theories and issues in the post-Soviet political and economic transition. The course will combine case-based discussions and board games inspired exercises classes with lectures by invited guest speakers. The course will analyze and discuss the interplay among markets, states and international organizations that formed and drove post-Soviet transformation processes. Reforms of transition have been immense encompassing political, economic and social spheres where political elites, interests organizations and societies of respective countries played an important role. Further the roles of legacy, institutional blueprints, and domestic structures along with the role of international organizations will be inquired into and unpacked. The causes and consequences of the transformation and reforms in post-Soviet states will be discussed from comparative perspective with case studies and data usage ranging from Europe to South Caucasus to Central Asian regions. Further, such topics as state-building, foreign aid and corruption, political and economic institution formation, democratization and economic reforms from gradual to shock therapy doctrine will be interrogated.

Lectures and Exercises

The course consists of two main components: lectures and exercise classes. While lectures will focus on introducing topics, theories and approaches, class exercises will help focus on cases (e.g. countries, regions) or issues (e.g. institutions, actors) related to the topic of the lecture. The area experts conduct the teaching in this course and students are introduced real life cases in their lectures. Exercises typically involve separate readings and may involve preparation of assignments, including work on cases, issues, and/or data. Pedagogics of the course will use blending learning elements where rendered appropriate along with group discussions. Students will obtain three types of feedback: individual feedback during class discussions, group feedback on group assignments for the exercise class and peer-to-peer feedback in the exercise class.  The lectures and particularly, case-based discussions in the exercise classes will be preparing students to their written exam, which is a take-home written assignment.

The course provides a list of mandatory and recommended readings below for each week. It will be expected that students will have to read and prepare on weekly basis the scholarly work indicated as ‘mandatory’, while the recommended reading is greatly encouraged to be also read, yet, it is not required or expected to be done prior the lectures by the students.