Time Schedule:
Stephen E Hanson
POL S 541
Seattle Campus
Critical appraisal of the principal theories and research methods dealing with the development of the Soviet state from 1917-1991 and the formation of the newly independent states after the Soviet collapse. Prerequisite: permission of instructor.
Class description
Description: This seminar is designed as a graduate-level survey of the main themes in political science investigations of the rise and fall of the Soviet bloc and of the creation of new institutions in the post-communist region. The course is open to any graduate student wishing to gain greater understanding of institutional change in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. However, those with no prior background in Leninist history are strongly encouraged to buy and read good histories of the USSR and of the Soviet bloc, such as Mary McAuley’s Soviet Politics, 1917-1991 and Joseph Rothschild’s Return to Diversity, A Political History of East-Central Europe since World War II. Seminars will be devoted primarily to class discussions of the assigned readings. For this reason, timely completion of the reading assignments is essential to the success of the course. The reading load is heavy, but manageable so long as one does not fall behind.
Student learning goals
1. Graduate students in this course should, by the end of the term, have a basic understanding of the main theoretical debates in the field of communist and postcommunist studies, sufficient to prepare for a Ph.D. written exam in this field.
2. Graduate students in this course should further develop their analytic writing skills through their completion of the two course essays on assigned theoretical topics.
3. Graduate students in this course will have the opportunity to interact in oral debates in a small semianr setting, refining their own intellectual identities and their abilities to defend theoretical arguments convincingly.
General method of instruction
Some short lectures by the instructor for introductory purposes, but most of the seminar will be taken up with course discussions of assigned texts.
Recommended preparation
This is a graduate-level course open to MA students in Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies and Ph.D. students in Political Science and related social science disciplines.
Class assignments and grading
Grades: Grades will be based upon class participation (10%), one analytic essay of 10-12 pages in length (40%), and a longer research paper of approximately 20-25 pages in length (50%).
