Syllabus
Zoom link: https://cesnet.zoom.us/j/99160473014?pwd=NEdMSWhLTitmQlV4YzhMeHFtQm1nUT09 1 17 February 2021
Presentations, course introduction, basic terms. 2 24 February 2021
Command economy, its functioning. Planning and its deficiencies, Innovations, Pricing system. Reforming of the economies. What were the systemic and what were the changeable features of the regime? Why did all the efforts to change the system fail? 3 3 March 2021 perestroika - reform plans. Was the fall of the Soviet Union inevitable? Was it caused only by economic affairs? What were the true consequences, results? 4 10 March 2021 post-Soviet transformation - approaches, typologies. 5 17 March 2021
Gradualism 6 24 March 2021 state capture, business capture in the post-Soviet Area 7 31 March 2021 politics and economy in the transformation 8 7 April 2021
Authoritarianism in the CIS, non-liberal model of development 9 14 April 2021 1998 - problems and consequences 10 21 April 2021
World financial crisis in the CIS. Did the fall in GDP reflect reality? Crisis in Russia, Economic integration in the CIS - reaction to globalization? 11 28 April 2021
Russia's transformation 12 5 May 2021
Ukraine's transformation 13 12 May 2021
Current challenges
Annotation
Since the fall of the Bretton Woods institutions, economists believed that the "market first" approach may solve all the problems of struggling economies. It seemed that the whole world acknowledged the victory of the liberal approach. However, as the time went on, it became obvious that neoliberalist approach did not work well for all the countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States. Some of them adopted a different approach to addressing the economic problems.
The course is primarily aimed at non-economists, but economists are also welcomed. Its main purpose is to provide students with an understanding of the political economy of developments in the post-Soviet space and the debates surrounding the transformation process. In comparison with purely economic science courses, the course covers a broader field of the change of political-economic systems.
When did the transformation begin? What were the main differences between the situation in Central Europe and the situation in the post-Soviet space? Why the transformation evolved to a semi-failed state in Ukraine, an authoritarian state in Russia or full dictatorships in Central Asia? What was the role of initial conditions? Is there any "right" approach, universal to all the countries? Why can economic science not agree on one single approach?