POLS 322/522 Politics of Russia Fall
2004
Prereq: One course in political
science or consent of instructor
GE III Social Science; Meets Foreign
Culture Requirement
Call# 8526...Section 001G-... 3.0
credit(s)
10:00AM-10:50AM...Mon.Wed.Fri...
Schneider Hall 202
Steven Majstorovic 207B Schneider Hall 836-2266
Office Hours: M-W-F 11:00 - 12:00 AM; W-F 2:00 - 3:00 PM; T-TH 11:00AM
- 12:00 PM; or by appointment. E-Mail: majstos@uwec.edu
Course Description:
The goal of this course is to put in perspective the
tumultuous events and the social, political, cultural, economic, and
ideological issues that have framed the ongoing drama that is Russia.
From the Tsarist empire, to the Soviet experiment, to the contemporary
scene where nations on the Russian periphery have established their
independence, this drama is still playing itself out. For half of the
20th century the Soviet Union's superpower status helped to dictate
America's policies as the counterbalance to Soviet designs. But despite
the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire, the Russia that has
emerged from this cataclysmic change is still a formidable state and
culture.
The course will be divided into two sections: The
first part of the course will examine the development of the Tsarist
and Soviet systems, the collapse of communism, and the Yeltsin/Putin
eras. Russia is now confronted by the difficulties of a triple
transition that requires political, economic, and cultural evolution
and change. Consequently, the focus will be on politics and history,
and an extended discussion of economics. In particular, the emphasis
will be on the difficulties involved in a transition to a free market
economy. The second part of the course will address the complex issues
of ethnic conflict and cultural identity in the former Soviet Union.
Ethnicity and nationalism have been a central source of conflict not
only in the former Soviet Union but throughout the world in the
post-Cold War era and a rigorous examination of Russia identity demands
a close examination of cultural issues and how they are manifested
politically. The course will conclude with an examination of Russia's
President Vladimir Putin as he negotiates the terrain between democracy
and authoritarianism in confronting the dimensions of the triple
Required Texts:
Thomas F. Remington. Politics in Russia,Third
Edition (Longman Press: N.Y., 2004).
Marshall I. Goldman. The Piratization of
Russia: Russian Reform Goes Awry (Routledge: N.Y., 2003)
James H. Billington. Russia in Search of
Itself (Woodrow Wilson Press: Washinton D.C., 2004)
Lilia Shevtsova. Putin’s
Russia, (Carneigie Endowment for International Peace: Washington
D.C., 2003)
Course
Requirements:
There are two examinations scheduled for this
course, a midterm and a final. The midterm will be an essay exam with
some identifications of key concepts. The final will be a rather open
ended examination which will challenge the student to make her/his own
independent
analyses of the issues addressed in this course. Study questions will
be handed out or E-Mailed once a few days before each examination.
The written requirements for this class are an essay
and a research paper. The essay will be 7 to 8 pages typed and double
spaced and will address topics and questions that are raised in class
discussions. The research paper will be approximately 15 to 20 pages in
length and will explore some subject matter which is directly related
to this course. Moreover, at least 15 research sources (journal
articles, scholarly books, interviews, etc., besides the required
texts) must be used for the term paper. Websites (WWW sites) as
research sources are not allowed unless these sites, like J-Stor, are
specifically designed to access the same type of scholarly sources that
one would find in the library. I am very open on paper topics and
students can meet with me to kick around ideas. Spelling,
grammar, and syntax errors will reflect poorly on your grade and
careful proofreading and editing is strongly suggested. It is also
suggested that the short essays may be useful as the building blocks
for the final research paper.
There will be a prospectus of your final research
paper that will be due a few weeks before the end of the semester. A
prospectus is an invaluable tool for writing a research paper. It is
much more than an outline. A prospectus generally contains an
introduction which establishes the thesis, purpose, importance,
relevance, etc. of your project. The body of the prospectus summarizes
the key elements of your research and how you will support your thesis,
claims, hypothesis, etc. The conclusion of the prospectus is flexible.
You can restate your thesis, how you supported your conclusions, a
discussion future direction, generalizations, and even some
speculation. Also, you should give me some sense of your research
sources as an addendum. This assignment should be no longer that 1 1/2
to 2 pages single spaced. If you know what you want to say, a 2 page
prospectus is more than adequate. A prospectus facilitates the writing
of a research paper and you will be glad that you did it--honest. I
will grade the prospectus and return it the next week and students are
allowed one rewrite for a possibly higher grade.
Class participation will be a critical part of the
grading scheme for this class and thus reading the assignments, getting
on the RFE/RL Listserve (see below), and attending class is
imperative. Finally, reading a good paper every day (New York
Times, Washington
Post, etc.) and going to the library to examine periodicals like the
Economist will be helpful in orienting you to contemporary events in
the world, and to perhaps help you find an interesting topic for the
research paper. The World Wide Web has sites that carry international
news
(www.nytimes.com, www.washingtonpost.com, www.latimes.com, and
www.yahoo.com). I expect the class to access the RFE/RL listserve
regularly and students should be prepared to comment on current events.
The class WEB site will have this syllabus posted along with study
guides for examinations, essay topics, and timely articles that I may
download and post to the site.
The syllabus is posted at:
http://www.uwec.edu/majstos/p322/p322sylF04.htm
Current events in Russia and Eastern Europe are summarized daily
(Monday thru Friday) by Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty (RFE/RFL).
Students can subscribe for daily E-Mail reports by RFE/RFL by following
the instructions listed below:
HOW TO SUBSCRIBE
Send an email to newsline-request@list.rferl.org with the word
subscribe as the subject of the message.
HOW TO UNSUBSCRIBE
Send an email to newsline-request@list.rferl.org with the word
unsubscribe as the subject of the message.
E-Mail Policy:
During the semester I will regularly send the class
E-Mail messages about upcoming exams, written assignments, general
class related issues, and in some cases an article to be read before an
upcoming class. All students at UWEC have a UWEC E-Mail address
and it is your
responsibility to check your UWEC E-Mail at least twice a week. I
cannot send E-Mail to AOL, HOTMAIL, etc. accounts so be prepared to
access your UWEC E-Mail account. I will also not respond to
E-Mail from AOL, HOTMAIL, etc. accounts. The reasons for this
policy are
simple. I cannot individually craft messages for the whole class
but send them out on a global class address. Consequently,
missing an E-Mail message is no reason to not be prepared for a pop
quiz. Moreover, I reserve the right to give quizzes at the
beginning of any class when I feel that the reading assignment has not
been fulfilled.
Grading Scheme:
Plus/Minus grades will be employed in this course.
Midterm
30%(30 pts)
Final exam
20% (20 pts)
Essay
10%(10 pts)
Prospectus
5% (5 pts)
Research Paper
25% (25 pts)
Class participation and Quizzes
10% (10 pts)
A = 93 - 100
A- = 90 - 92
B+ = 87 - 89
B = 83 - 87
B- = 80 - 82
C+ = 77 - 79
C = 73 - 76
C- = 70 - 72
D+ = 67 - 69
D = 63 - 66
D- = 60 - 62
F = 0 - 59
The examinations, essays, term paper, and class
participation will receive a letter grade which will then be converted
to the weighted point scheme depicted above.
Student Issues:
A late paper will be penalized one letter grade for
each day that it is late. Makeup exams will only be allowed under
circumstances which are considered reasonable (protracted illness,
death in the family, accident, getting a tattoo removed, etc) and the
reason for missing the exam can be documented. Plagiarism and
cheating will not be tolerated; the penalties are severe (an F on the
exam, an F in the course, and possibly worse). The
guidelines of the student honor code policy are covered in your student
handbook. The lesson here is to cite your sources well on
the final paper; again read the file termpapr.htm which will be posted
later in the semester on the class website. If requested your
work must be available on disk; modern computer search engines easily
find plagiarism. For more information about the technology used
in discovering plagiarism, log on to www.plagiarism.com or
www.turnitin.com
Portfolio Project:
Each student at UWEC upon entering the university is
given a portfolio notebook. The goal of the portfolio project is
to create a body of work that the student can then use later in their
career, especially for job applications and interviews. The
project also enables UWEC to assess student performance and improvement
during their time at UWEC. Consequently, it is imperative that
you not only save your paper in hardcopy but also on disk since the
UWEC portfolio project now enables students to upload their papers to
an electronic archive on the UWEC system; there is an area set aside
for you. It is up to you to familiarize yourself with the
portfolio requirements and the goals of the baccalaureate as outlined
in your notebook. You can then assess which category fits your
paper best and then when you upload your paper to the archive you
can put it in the suitable category.
Reading and Assignment Schedule
September
3 - Class Introduction and a discussion of the syllabus. Some
preliminary discussion on Chapter 1: Rebuilding the Russian State
6 - Russia social and political background, history and foundations of
Russian politics, and Pre-Revolutionary Russia
8 - The Revolution and Ideology: Marxism-Leninism
10 - Party history and organization: Remington, Chapter 2 - The Soviet
System and Its Demise
13 - Remington, Chapter 3 - Russia and the Post-Soviet Constitutional
Order
15 - Remington, Chapter 4, Political Participation and Recruitment
17 - Remington, Chapter 5 - The Dynamics of Political Culture
20 - Remington, Chapter 6 - Interest Groups and Political Parties
22 - Remington, Chapter 6 (cont)
24 - A Discussion of Economics starring Weber, Adam Smith, Individual
Self-Interest, Capitalism, Socialism, and more Marx; Remington, Chapter
7 - The Politics of Partial Reform
27 - Goldman, Chapter 1- Russia’s Financial Buccaneers: The Wild and
Wooly West and Chapter 2 - Setting the State: The Russian
Economy in the Post-Communist Era
29 - Goldman, Chapter 3 - The Legacy of the Czarist Era: Untenable and
Unsavory Roots and Chapter 4 - It’s Broke, So Fix It: The Stalinist and
Gorbachev Legacies
October
1 - Goldman, Chapter 5 - Privatization: Good Intentions, But the Wrong
Advice at the Wrong Time
4 - Goldman, Chapter 6 - The Nomenklatura Oligarchs
6 - Goldman, Chapter 7 - The Upstart Oligarchs
8 - Goldman, Chapter 8 - FIMACO, The Russian Central Bank, and Money
Laundering at the Highest Level and Chapter 9 - Corruption, Crime, and
the Russian Mafia
11 - Goldman, Chapter 9 (cont) and Chapter 10 - Who Says There Was No
Better Way?
13 - Goldman, Chapter 11 - Confidence or Con-Game: What Will it Take?
15 - Remington, Chapter 8 - Toward the Rule of Law
18 - Remington, Chapter 9 - Russian and the International Community
20 - Mid-Term Examination!!! Be sure to bring two bluebooks
22 - A discussion of Ethnicity and Nationalism: A question of identity
25 - Russian, French, and American Identity: Issues of Citizenship;
Billington, The Long Prologue and Chapter 1- The 19th Century Discovery
of Identity
27 - Billington, Chapter 2 - The 20th Century Search for Legitimacy and
Chapter 3 - A New Nation in Search of Identity;
29 - Billington, Chapter 3 (cont) and Chapter 4 - The
Authoritarian Alternative: Eurasianism
November
1- Chapter 4 (cont)
3 - Billington, Chapter 5 - The Travails of a Democratic Indentity
5 - Billington, Chapter 5 (cont)
8 - Billington, Conclusion;
10 - Shevtsova, Prologue; Essay
is Due!!
12 - Shevtsova, Chapter 1 - The Kremlin’s Power Play
15 - Shevtsova, Chapter 2 - The End of the Yeltsin Era
17 - Shevtsova, Chapter 3 - Putin, The New Russian Leader
19 - Shevtsova, Chapter 3 (cont) and Chapter 4 - The Moment of Truth
22 - Shevtsova, Chapter 4 (cont)
24 - Shevtsova, Chapter 5 - Power in one Fist
26 - Thanksgiving Break
29 - Shevtsova, Chapter 6 - Russia Tranquilized; Prospectus is Due
December
1 - Shevtsova, Chapter 7 - The Long-Awaited Breakthrough
3 - Shevtsova, Chapter 7 (cont) and Chapter 8 - On the Eve of a New Race
6 - Shevtsova, Chapter 8 (cont) and Chapter 9 - An Unfinished Story:
How Russia Responds to Its Challenges
8 - Shevtsova, Chapter 9 (cont) and discussion of research paper
10 - Final Exam Review; RESEARCH PAPER
IS DUE!!!
16- FINAL EXAMINATION, Dec 16
-Thursday 10:00 AM - 11:50 AM