Module POC3128 for 2021/2
- Overview
- Aims and Learning Outcomes
- Module Content
- Indicative Reading List
- Assessment
Undergraduate Module Descriptor
POC3128: Post-Soviet Politics and Societies
This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.
Please note that this module is only delivered on the Penryn Campus.
Module Aims
This module will introduce you to the history of the USSR and the internal politics and international relations of the states that have emerged in its place, namely Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, the Baltic states, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
The module has four main aims. First, it will enable you to analyse key processes and developments in Soviet and post-Soviet politics. By the end of the module, you will be able to identify and assess key legacies of the Soviet experience, evaluate the reasons behind the diversity of regime types in the region, appreciate the reasons for the domestic success of the Putin model of governance and understand some of the key conflicts that have erupted in the post-Soviet era. Second, it will enable you to critically employ key concepts and analytical frameworks associated with the region, including totalitarianism, the transition paradigm, frozen conflicts and Eurasianism. Thirdly, it will introduce you to concepts, perspectives and processes that will be useful in international relations and comparative politics more broadly, including post-colonialism, civil society and regionalism. Fourthly, it aims to develop a sensitivity towards the differences between Western and non-Western worldviews; by the end of the module, you will also be able to attune yourself to hidden assumptions in Western and Russian scholarly and journalistic reports on the region.
| On successfully completing the programme you will be able to: | |
|---|---|
| Module-Specific Skills | 1. Comprehend and evaluate the modern historical contexts for contemporary events and processes in the post-Soviet space. 2. Comprehend and critically evaluate a range of key concepts and theoretical approaches to the region. 3. Demonstrate an understanding of the significance of these countries at the international level |
| Discipline-Specific Skills | 4. Critically employ a range of theoretical frameworks to a variety of empirical cases. 5. Critically analyze theoretical and empirical materials. 6. Independently collect, analyse, and interpret relevant empirical materials |
| Personal and Key Skills | 7. Construct a reasoned and logical argument supported by evidence. 8. Communicate effectively through well-structured speech and writing. 9. Work independently to achieve goals. |
Indicative Reading List
This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.
Beissinger, Marc, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
Beissinger, Mark and Stephen Kotkin (eds), Historical Legacies of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
Carothers, Thomas, ‘The End of the Transition Paradigm’, Journal of Democracy, Vol. 13, No. 1 (January 2002).
Cohen, Stephen F. ‘Was the Soviet System Reformable?,” Slavic Review, Vol. 63, No. 3 (Autumn 2004).
Cooley, Alexander, Great Games, Local Rules: The New Great Power Contest in Central Asia, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Edgar, Adrienne Lynn, Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan, (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2006).
Hirsch, Francine, ‘Toward an Empire of Nations: Border-Making and the Formation of Soviet National Identities’, Russian Review Vol. 59, No. 2 (2000).
Sakwa, Richard, Putin: Russia’s Choice, 2nd Edition, (Abingdon: Routledge, 2008).
Sakwa, Richard, The Crisis of Russian Democracy: The Dual State, Factionalism and the Medvedev Succession, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Sakwa, Richard, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands, (London: I.B. Taurus, 2014).
Tsygankov, Andrei, Russia’s Foreign Policy: Change and Continuity in National Identity, Third Edition, (Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013)
Yurchak, Alexei, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
