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Politics of East-Central Europe: Syllabus |  |
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January 17: Introduction
January 21: Martin Luther King Holiday
January 24: Interwar Politics
Rothschild and Wingfield, Return to Diversity, Chapter 1 (pp. 1-22). 22 pages.
Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts, Chapter 5 (pp. 79-99). 21 pages. Romania.
Focus: What factors shaped the geography and ethnic composition of the new states? How did interwar regimes treat minorities? What were the major political divisions in the interwar states? Why did democracy gradually fail in most interwar states?
Recommended Reading:
R.J. Crampton, Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After, Chapters 2-5, 7-9, 11 (pp. 31-94, 107-143, 152-76).
Hugh Seton-Watson, Eastern Europe Between the Wars 1918-1941 (Cambridge University Press 1945), particularly Chapter 6 (pp. 157-267).
Related Reading:
Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe between the Two World Wars (University of Washington 1974).
Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans, Twentieth Century, Vol. 2, portions of Chapters 4-6 (pp. 121-5, 134-71, 184-5, 192-209, 212-3). 65 pages
Ezra Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe Between the World Wars (Indiana 1983).
Georg von Rauch, The Baltic States: The Years of Independence 1917-1940 (St. Martin’s 1995).
January 31: World War II
Rothschild and Wingfield, Return to Diversity, Chapter 2 (pp. 23-73). 51 pages.
Focus: Why did Czechoslovakia fail to resist Nazi occupation while Poland fought? Why did some nations ally with the Axis powers? How did Hitler successfully exploit rivalries among the various peoples of the region? How did World War II and its conclusion reshape the map and ethnic composition of East Central Europe? What was the fate of the Jews and other minorities during the War? Why did most Jews survive in some countries (e.g. Bulgaria) but not others (e.g. Poland)?
Recommended Reading:
Hugh Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution (Methuen & Co. 1950), Chapters 3-7 (pp. 49-166).
Related Reading:
Countess R.G. Waldeck, Athene Palace (Blue Ribbon Books 1942).
February 7: Establishment of Communist Regimes
Rothschild and Wingfield, Return to Diversity, Chapter 3-4 (pp. 74-146). 72 pages
Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts, Chapters 6, 12-13 (pp. 100-116, 191-219). 46 pages. Romania.
Slavenka Drakulic, How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed (HarperCollins 1993), Chapters 2-3, 9, 12 (pp. 11-32, 82-92, 113-22). 43 pages
Focus: Why did democracy fail so quickly after World War II? What aspects of the Communist takeover were similar throughout the Eastern bloc? How did the Communists attempt to gain genuine popular support in these countries? To what extent were they successful? How did the Soviets aid their Communist proteges? Could democracy have survived long with greater Western support? What were the goals of the various Communist regimes? What is "national communism" and why was it rejected at the founding of Cominform? How did Communist policies nevertheless vary around the region? Why did Tito break with Stalin? Why was Yugoslavia able to break with the Soviet leadership even though others who later tried failed? Why were there so many purges throughout the region? What was life like under Communism for the average citizen?
Related Reading:
Hugh Seton-Watson, The East European Revolution (Methuen & Co. 1950), Chapter 8 (pp. 167-229).
R.J. Crampton, Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century – And After, Chapters 14-15 (pp. 240-74). 35 pages
February 14: Attempts at Dissent from Communism
Rothschild and Wingfield, Return to Diversity, Chapter 5 and most of Chapter 6 (pp. 147-217).
Focus: Virtually every country around the region attempted to either radically dissent or break away from the Communist bloc during the postwar period. What provoked calls for liberalization? What individuals and groups promoted dissent or reform? Why did some countries attempt to liberalize earlier than others? Why did the 1968 Czechoslovak "Prague Spring" fail even though the Dubcek and the rest of the Czechoslovak leadership specifically worked to keep the reforms mild and to avoid the concerns that lead to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956? Why were Gheorghiu-Dej and Ceausescu’s deviations from Communist orthodoxy tolerated by the Soviets? Why was the Polish government able to "buy off" opponents in the 1950s and 1960s, but had to resort to full-scale repression against Solidarity in the 1980s? Why was Communism never seriously challenged in Bulgaria? What happened after the suppression of reform?
Related Reading:
Grzegorz Ekiert, The State Against Society: Political Crises and Their Aftermath in East Central Europe (Princeton 1996).
February 21: The Fall of Communism
Rothschild and Wingfield, Return to Diversity, end of Chapter 6 and Chapter 7 (pp. 217-263). 47 pages.
Timothy Garton Ash, The Magic Lantern (Vintage 1990), Chapters on Warsaw, Budapest, and Prague (pp. 25-60, 78-130). 89 pages
Focus: Why did Communism end when it did and not earlier or later? What were the differences in the demise of the Communism regimes around the region? Why was there a gradual evolution toward democracy in Poland and Hungary, but a "Velvet Revolution" in Czechoslovakia, and a violent revolution in Romania? Were the new regimes really non-Communist?
February 28: The Problem of Decommunisation
Tina Rosenberg, The Haunted Land: Facing Europe’s Ghosts After Communism (Random House 1995), Introduction and Part One (pp. xi-xxiv, 3-121). 133 pages. Czechoslovakia
Focus: How should newly democratic societies deal with their Communist past? Should all former Communists or secret police informers be purged from public office? Should former leading Communists or lower-level functionaries be put on trial? Who should have access to the secret police files? Was Czechoslovakia’a lustrace policy a sensible one?
Recommended Reading:
Timothy Garton Ash, The File: A Personal History (Vintage 1997).
Related Reading:
Julian Barnes, The Porcupine (Vintage 1993).
Slavenka Drakulic, Café Europa: Life after Communism (Abacus 1996).
March 7: Midterm Exam
March 8: Last Day to Drop a Course
March 14: Spring Break, No Class
March 21: The Fall of Yugoslavia
Robert D. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts, Chapters 1-4 (pp. 3-76). Yugoslavia
Rothschild and Wingfield, Return to Diversity, part of Chapter 8 (pp. 292-301).
V.P. Gagnon, Jr., "Serbia’s Road to War" in Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Democracy, edited by Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (Johns Hopkins 1994), pp. 102-16.
Focus: Why did Yugoslavia collapse? What its breakup inevitable the inevitable result of the reemerging of historic ethnic hatreds? Could the West have prevented the wars? Did the West actually help encourage the wars? Is the partition of different groups into separate states the solution to the problem?
Recommended Reading:
Susan Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution After the Cold War (Brookings 1995).
Related Reading:
Noel Malcolm, Kosovo: A Short History (HarperCollins 1999).
Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History (NYU Press 1996).
Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (Penguin 1996).
Laura Silber and Allan Little, Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (Penguin 1997).
Miranda Vickers and James Pettifer, Albania: From Anarchy to a Balkan Identity (NYU Press 1997).
Susan Woodward, Socialist Unemployment: The Political Economy of Yugoslavia, 1945-1990 (Princeton 1995).
Loring Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World (Princeton 1995).
F.W. Carter and H.T. Norris, eds., The Changing Shape of the Balkans (Westview 1996).
Marcus Tanner, Croatia: A Nation Forged in War (Yale 1998).
Tim Judah, The Serbs: History, Myth, and the Destruction of Yugoslavia (Yale 1997).
Radha Kumar, Divide and Fall? Bosnia in the Annals of Partition (Verso 1997).
Slavenka Drakulic, The Balkan Express: Fragments from the Other Side of the War (Norton 1993).
March 28: Economic Reform
Jeffrey Sachs, Poland’s Jump to the Market Economy (MIT 1993), entire book (pp. 3-114). 112 pages. Poland
Focus: What are the problems that the formerly Communist nations face in their transition to a market economy? Which groups benefit and which groups lose from the shift? Is "shock therapy" a better approach than gradual reforms? Why did most countries initially suffer from great inflation? What have countries established stable economies and currencies while other states continue to stagnate?
Related Readings:
Marja Missinen, Latvia’s Transition to a Market Economy: Political Determinants of Economic Reform Policy (St. Martin’s 1999).
April 4: Minorities and Majorities
Paul Hockenos, Free to Hate: The Rise of the Right in Post-Communist Eastern Europe (Routledge 1993), Chapter 8 (pp. 271-99). 29 pages.
Isabel Fonseca, Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey (Knopf 1995), Introduction and Chapter 1 (pp. 3-82). 80 pages. Albania.
Jeff Chinn and Robert Kaiser, Russians as the New Minority: Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Soviet Successor States (Westview 1996), Chapter 5 (pp. 93-124). 32 pages. The Baltic States.
Focus: What is the difference in how minorities with and without states in the region fare under the new regimes? How and why is the status of the two "stateless" minorities, Roma and Jews, different? How are Russians living outside the Russian Federation coping with their rapid shift from being members of the dominant nationality in the Soviet Union to being a minority in new states? How do questions of nationality and ethnicity shape relations between states and politics within states?
Related Reading:
David D. Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad (Cornell 1998).
Janusz Bugajski, "The Fate of Minorities in Eastern Europe" in Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Democracy, edited by Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (Johns Hopkins 1994), pp. 102-16.
Jolanta Ambrosewicz and Annamaria Orla-Bukowska, "After the Fall: Attitudes Towards Jews in Post-1989 Poland," Nationalities Papers, Volume 26, Number 2 (June 1998), pp. 265-82. 18 pages.
April 11: Electoral Systems
David M. Farrell, Electoral Systems: A Comparative Introduction (Palgrave 2001), Chapters 4-5, 9 (pp. 68-120, 192-207). 69 pages.
Frantisek Turnovec, "Electoral Rules and the Fate of Nations: Czechoslovakia's Last Parliamentary Election" in Michael Kraus and Allison Stanger, eds., Irreconcilable Differences? Explaining Czechoslovakia's Dissolution (Rowman & Littlefield 2000), pp. 107-36. 19 pages; no need to read the appendix.
Focus: How do electoral systems based on proportional representation function? How are they different from the electoral system used to elect the U.S. House of Representatives or British House of Commons? How does the mixed system used in Germany function? Which systems are the most proportional? Which systems make it easier for extremist parties to gain parliamentary seats and power? Which electoral system do you think is most appropriate for the democratizing nations of East-Central Europe? Why did the electoral system used in Czechoslovakia arguably contribute to the division of the country?
Recommended Reading:
David M. Farrell, Electoral Systems: A Comparative Introduction (Palgrave 2001), rest of the book.
April 18: Democratic Elections
Kay Lawson, Andrea Römmele, and Georgi Karasimeonov, eds., Cleavages, Parties and Voters: Studies from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Romania (Praeger 1999), Chapters 9, 11-12, 14, 16-17 (pp. 123-40, 159-84, 203-213, 239-73). These are the chapters on parties and voters in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Romania.
Focus: What are the major issue cleavages between the parties in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Romania? To what extent are the similar to the sorts of issue cleavages that divide parties in the United States and other western democracies? Which sorts of parties have gained the greatest support from voters? To what extent have ex-Communist parties been able to win support in free elections? Why have incumbent parties found it difficult to retain power after new elections? How stable are the party systems?
April 25: Consolidation of Democracy
Richard Rose, William Misher, and Christian Haerpfer, Democracy and its Alternatives: Understanding Post-Communist Societies (Johns Hopkins 1998), Chapters 5-6, 8 (pp. 91-140, 160-78). 69 pages.
Focus: How deep is support for "civil society" and democracy in East-Central Europe compared to the well-established and wealthier democracies of the West? Similarly, how great is support for the economic reforms needed to move from a centralized to a market economy. Why is support for the new regimes and economic reform greater in some countries and among some sections of the population than others? Do many people miss the former Communist regimes?
Recommended Reading:
Abby Innes, Czechoslovakia: The Short Goodbye (Yale University Press 2001).
May 2: Final Exam at 5:30pm
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