To comprehend contemporary geopolitical crises in the former Soviet Union, from Russia's military invasion of Ukraine to the emergence of multiple authoritarian regimes characterized by right-wing, traditionalist, and patriarchal governance, historical context is essential. One must trace these developments back to the 1990s period of so-called "shock therapy" economic reforms. As the Eastern Bloc fragmented and the Soviet Union dissolved, Western powers and international institutions, including the IMF and World Bank, imposed a sweeping program of radical, rapid, and comprehensive privatization on post-Soviet nations. Western neoliberal economists, including Milton Friedman and Jeffrey Sachs, theorized that such a rapid transition might initially cause hardship but would ultimately produce efficient, equitable, developed, and prosperous market economies replacing previous state-run socialist systems. In practice, however, these policies generated chaotic and devastating transitions. Living standards collapsed, population health deteriorated severely, and various kleptocratic autocracies emerged while former state enterprises transformed into private fiefdoms controlled by well-connected "oligarchs."
By the 2000s, Vladimir Putin rose to power in Russia, initially celebrated by Western political leaders, business figures, and media outlets. He established a distinctive regime combining neoliberal authoritarianism with fragmentary and inconsistent systems of state-managed public welfare. Even in nations with more "successful" economic transitions, such as Poland and Hungary, similar authoritarian systems emerged, characterized by patriarchal, traditionalist, and anti-Communist governance. This course asks fundamental questions: How can we interpret these complex and seemingly contradictory political-economic formations? What type of regime is Russia, and how does its socioeconomic history illuminate its contemporary military activities, social crises, and conservatism? Where do Russia's geopolitical interests fit within global capitalism? How can we comprehend this broader phenomenon across the entire region?
This course presents a political-economic investigation of Russia's liberalization, from shock therapy reforms through the rise of oligarchs to regime stabilization under Putin's leadership. We will trace the post-Soviet transformation in Russia beginning with the Shock Therapy reforms of the 1990s, including privatization, deregulation, and reduced social spending, continuing through the so-called "statist turn" characterized by power centralization, reliance on resource extraction, military expansion, and promotion of traditionalist, Christian, and patriarchal family structures under Putin and comparable leaders in the 2000s. We will examine these developments through the lens of social policy, law, and international political economy.
In addressing these questions, we will analyze primary sources including financial reports, economic and social policy documents, political party statements, and official speeches. Students will also engage with scholarship from Tony Wood, Boris Kagarlitsky, Iván Szelényi, Linda Cook, Zhanna Chernova, Elena Gapova, Anna Temkina, Kristen Ghodsee, Mitchell A. Orenstein, Hilary Appel, Volodymyr Ishchenko, Oleg Zhuravlev, Theodore P. Gerber, Michael Hout, Ilya Budraitskis, Michele Rivkin-Fish, Richard Sakwa, Simon Pirani, Jeremy Morris, Ilya Matveev, and others. By challenging ahistorical "democratization" theories that contrast "normal" Western capitalism against supposedly "predatory" and corrupt Russian capitalism, this course examines the future by investigating the relationship between neoliberal, nationalist, and revisionist orientations within contemporary Russian state governance.
