Conor O'Dwyer
CPO 3614 / EUS 3930 (Fall 2009)
MWF 11:45-12:35 / Anderson 034
http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/codwyer/EE_Politics_Fall_2009/EE_Politics_Syllabus.html
(Note: The online syllabus is the full syllabus of record.)
The Politics of Postcommunist Eastern Europe
Office Hours in 311 Anderson:M 3-4; W 1:30-2:30; and by appointment
Description
This class will provide a survey
of the politics of postcommunist Eastern Europe, from the emergence of
national states in the interwar period to their recent accession to the
European Union. Just as the collapse
of the region's communist regimes took social scientists by surprise in
1989, so too has the remarkable divergence of political and
economic trajectories since. In some countries,
democratic institutions were swiftly consolidated. In others,
free elections produced "illiberal democracies." Likewise in the
economic
sphere, outcomes have varied widely: while some
governments quickly managed difficult reforms and laid the conditions
for
growth, others faced extended economic stagnation. Finally, a number of
the region's states have joined the European Union and NATO, a process
that, arguably, has deepened democracy and cemented economic reforms
even as it adds new complexity to the postcommunist transition. In short, the
range of outcomes in postcommunist Europe makes the region an ideal laboratory for testing the
explanatory power of major theories of comparative politics. Our
survey of political and economic developments in this region will cover democratization and political participation;
privatization and macroeconomic reform; nationalism and ethnic
conflict; as well as state-building and institutional development. Though we will cover the whole region, the
countries that will receive primary consideration are Poland, the
former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, the former Yugoslavia, and Romania.
Requirements
•Participation in class activities (10% of grade),
-Over
the course of the semester, I will organize
class activities such as debates on issues from the course, short
writing assignments, group discussions, and, time allowing, student
presentations.
•3 in-class tests (20% of grade each -- Oct. 2, Nov. 2, December 7
-The tests' format will be described in class.
•Final paper (20% of grade),
-A
paper of 1,500 words maximum (about 5-6 pages) on a topic relevant
to the issues discussed in the course will be due on December 9th
in class. In addition to submitting a hard copy, everyone
must also email me a copy of their paper by December 9th. I will
provide a list of suitable paper topics on October 19th; however, students
are encouraged to develop their own paper topics provided that they
first submit their topic proposal to me by October 19th. Some
outside research will be expected, but I will also expect you to make
use of the readings and arguments from the class. (I
will go over the precise expectations for the paper in class.)
To prevent plagiarism, I will check the papers using Turnitin.com.
•Attendance (10% of grade).
Student participation is a very
important component of this course. I
assume full and active engagement with the
readings, lectures, and discussions in the class. In the
interests of fairness and given the size of the course, there will be
no extra credit assignments.
Policy on Exam Make-Ups
I will only schedule
exam make-ups for students who are physically
unable to take the exam at the normally scheduled time.
Texts
There are two required books. They are available for purchase at Goering's Book Store (1717 NW 1st Avenue, Tel. 352-377-3703):
• Gale Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down (London: Sage Publications,1998).
• Stephen White, Judy Batt, and Paul G. Lewis (eds.), Developments
in Central and East European Politics 4 (Raleigh: Duke University Press,
2007)
The rest of the readings will be
available on-line through E-RESERVES at the university library (http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/ -- click on the link labeled "Course Reserves").
Reading and Assignment Schedule
Note: I
expect you to have completed the relevant assigned
readings prior to class and to be ready to discuss them. As you
will notice below, the readings are grouped by week. In each
class period, I will announce which readings I will expect you to have
completed for the next period.
Part I: Historical Background
Week 1 (Aug 24-28): Starting Points
•Situating the Region; the Interwar Period
•Democratic Breakdown
•WWII and Its Aftermath
Readings:
•Developments
in Central and East European Politics 3: Ch. 1 J. Blatt, "Introduction: Defining Central and Eastern Europe": 3-22. (E-RESERVES)
•Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down: 3-11.
•Jan Gross, "Social
Consequences of War: Preliminaries to the Study of Imposition of
Communist Regimes in East Central Europe," East European Politics and Societies 3(1989): 198-214. (E-RESERVES)
Week 2 (Aug 31-Sep 4): Behind the Iron Curtain (I)
•The Leninist State and the Command Economy
•Stalinism
•De-Stalinization
Readings:
•Joseph Rothschild, Return to Diversity, Ch. 3 "The Communists Come to Power" (Oxford UP: 1989), pp. 75-123 (E-RESERVES).
•Paul Gregory, "The Stalinist Command Economy", Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (January 1990): 18-25. (E-RESERVES)
•Andrew
Janos, "What Was Communism: A Retrospective in Comparative Analysis,"
Communist and Post-Communist Studies 29(1): 1-24. (E-RESERVES)
Sep 7 -- Labor Day Holiday
Week 3 (Sep 9-11): Behind the Iron Curtain (II)
•The Return of Civil Society: Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring and Poland's Solidarity
Movement
Readings:
•Developments
in Central and East European Politics 4, Ch.2 M. Pittaway "From Communist to Postcommunist Politics": 20-36.
•Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down:
•Poland: pp. 12-45.
•Czechoslovakia: 46-48, 65-68
•Václav Havel, "The Power of the Powerless" in Brinton and Rinzler, eds., Without Force or Lies (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1990): 43-73. (E-RESERVES)
Part II: Democratization
Week 4 (Sep 14-18): The 1989 Revolutions (I)
•The International Context: Gorbachev, Perestroika, and Glasnost
•Varieties of Democratization: An Overview of the 1989 Revolutions•Negotiated Transition (1): Poland
Readings:
•Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down: 68-77, 131-132.
•Poland: 102-130
•Andrew Janos, East Central Europe in the Modern World: The Politics of the Borderlands from Pre- to Postcommunism, "From Communism to Postcommunism: The Return of Liberalism" (Stanford: Stanford UP, 2000): 329-360. (E-RESERVES)
•Developments
in Central and East European Politics 4, Ch. 13 C. Mudde, "Civil Society": pp. 213-228.
Available for viewing on the internet
Kenneth Jowitt as part of UC Berkeley's "Conversations with History" Series
Focus on following sections (6:21-7:45 min. & 12:19-25:00 min.)
Week 5 (Sep 21-25): The 1989 Revolutions (II)
•Negotiated Transition (2): Hungary
•Regime Collapse (1): East Germany
Readings:
•Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down
•Hungary: 78-101, 132-136
•East Germany: 136-141
Week 6 (Sep 28-Oct 2): The 1989 Revolutions (III)
•Regime Collapse (2): Czechoslovakia•Test -- Friday, Oct. 2.
Readings:
•Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down•Czechoslovakia: 148-157
•T.G. Ash, The Magic Lantern: The Revolution of '89 Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin, and Prague, Ch. 5 "Prague: Inside the Magic Lantern" (Vintage: 1993), pp. 78-94. (E-RESERVES)
Week 7 (Oct 5-9): The 1989 Revolutions (IV)
•Coup d'etat/Revolution without Democratization: Romania and Bulgaria•Movie: "12:08 East of Bucharest"•Discussion of "12:08 East of Bucharest"
Readings:
•Reading TBA•V. Tismaneanu, "The Revival of Politics in Romania," In The New Europe: Revolution in East-West Relations ed. N.H. Wessel, Proceedings, vol. 38, no. 1 The Academy of Political Science: pp. 85-100. (E-RESERVES)•Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down•Bulgaria: 49-52, 141-148
•Romania: 52-59, 158-167
Part III: Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict
Week 8 (Oct 12-14): Democratization and Nationalism
•A Comparison of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia
Readings:
•Andrew
Janos, "Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia: Ethnic Conflict and the
Dissolution of Multinational States," Exploratory Essays No. 3,
International and Area Studies, University of California at Berkeley
(1997). (E-RESERVES)•Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down: 203-211, 218-252.
Video Clip on Slobodan Milošević
•link to video clip
Oct 16 -- Homecoming Holiday
Week 9 (Oct 19-23): Ethnic War
•October 19: Submit paper topic choices by this date
•Suggested paper topics here.
Readings:
•Samantha Power, A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, Ch. 9, "Bosnia: 'No More than Witnesses at a Funeral,'" (Harper Perennial 2002), pp. 247-329. (E-RESERVES)
Recommended Reading:
•Robert Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, Ch. 1 "Just So They Could Go to Heaven," pp. 3-28. (E-RESERVES)
Week 10 (Oct 26-30): Class Debate on Democratization and Ethnic Conflict
Part IV: Economic Crisis and Reform
Week 11 (Nov 2-6): Economic Reform (I)
•Test -- Monday, Nov. 2
•Starting Points: The Centrally Planned Economy
•Gradualism vs. Shock-Therapy
Readings:
•Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down: 191-202.
• B. Eichengreen, The European Economy Since 1945, (Princeton UP: 2007), Ch. 5 "Eastern Europe and the Planned Economy": pp. 131-162. (E-RESERVES)
•Developments
in Central and East European Politics 4, Ch. 15 D. Nuti, "Managing Transition Economies": 245-263.
Additional Materials:
• Documentary on economic reform in Russia and Poland "The Commanding Heights" (Episode 2, Chapters 12-21); available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/story/ch_menu_02.html
Week 12 (Nov 9): Economic Reform (II)
•Poland's Big Bang
•Notes on Poland's Big Bang
Readings:
•Jeffrey Sachs, Poland's Jump to the Market Economy, Ch. 2 "Poland's Big Bang" (MIT Press, 1993), pp. 35-78 (E-RESERVES)
Nov 11 -- Veterans' Day Holiday
Nov 13 -- Final paper work day
Part V: The Practice of Democracy After Communism
Week 13 (Nov 16-20): Economic Reform (III)
•Democracy and Economic Reform: Complementary or Conflicting?•The Economic Crisis of 2008-2009
Readings:
•Joel Hellman, "Winners Take
All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions" World
Politics 50(1998): 203-234. (E-RESERVES)
•David Cameron, " The EU's Response to the Economic Crisis," EPS Newsletter (Summer 2009): 3-16. (Link here)
•Mitchell Orenstein, "What Happened in East European (Political) Economies? A Balance Sheet for Neoliberal Reform," EPS Newsletter (Summer 2009): 27-31. (Link here)
Recommended Reading:
•Andrew Barnes, "Comparative
Theft: Context and Choice in the Hungarian, Czech, and Russian
Transformations, 1989-2000," EEPS 17 (2003): 533–565. (E-RESERVES)
Week 14 (Nov 23-25): EU Accession
•EU Accession
•Nov 25 -- Final paper work day
Readings:
•Developments
in Central and East European Politics 4,
•Ch. 7 H. Grabbe, "Central and Eastern Europe and the EU": pp. 110-126.
•Ch. 4 T. Haughton, "The Other New Europeans": pp. 56-71
Week 15 (Nov 30-Dec 4): EU Accession / Reflections on Postcommunist Democracy
•Film: "Czech Dream" (Part I)
•Film: Czech Dream (Part 2)
•Reflections on Postcommunist Democracy
Readings:
Stokes, The Walls Came Tumbling Down: 168-190, 211-217.
•Developments
in Central and East European Politics 4,
•Ch. 3 F. Millard, "The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland": 37-55.
•Ch. 12 K. Jasiewicz, "Citizens and Politics": pp. 193-212.
•Ch. 16 D. Berg-Schlosser, "The Quality of Postcommunist Democracy": pp. 264-275.
Week 16 (Dec 7-9): Czech Dream
•Test -- Monday, Dec 7
•Dec 9 -- Final Papers Due, one paper copy in class and one copy emailed to instructor.