GOV 1243/2007, p.

HARVARD UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT

GOVERNMENT 1243: RUSSIAN POLITICS IN TRANSITION

Fall term, 2007

Dmitry P. Gorenburg, Lecturer in Government

Office: Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, CGIS South (1730 Cambridge Street),
Room 314
Telephone: 617-496-9412 email: <gorenbur@fas.harvard.edu>
Office hours: Mondays 2 to 4 pm
Teaching Fellow: Masha Hedberg; email <mhedberg@fas.harvard.edu>

BOOKSTORE AND LIBRARY

Seven books have been made available for purchase at the Coop. All are paperbacks.
They are also available on reserve at Lamont.

Timothy J. Colton and Michael McFaul, Popular Choice and Managed Democracy: The Russian
Elections of 1999-2000 (Brookings Institution, 2003).
M. Steven Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics (Cambridge
University Press, 2005).
Dale R. Herspring, Putin’s Russia: Past Imperfect, Future Uncertain, 3rd. ed. (Rowman &
Littlefield, 2006). MAKE SURE YOU GET THE 3RD EDITION!!
Marc Morjé Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge
University Press, 2003).
Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970-2000 (Oxford University
Press, 2001).
Alena V. Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices that Shaped Post-Soviet
Politics and Business (Cornell University Press, 2006).
Michael McFaul, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin
(Cornell University Press, 2001).

Most journal articles are available on electronic reserve or in the course documents section of the
website. There are some articles and book chapters that are not available electronically through
the library. These have been collected in a course pack that can be purchased at Gnomon Copy
and are also available on reserve at Lamont. In the course outline below, readings from the books
are indicated by ●, articles available on electronic reserve or on the website are indicated by *,
and readings available in the course packet are indicated by ■.
 GOV 1243/2007, p. 2

ORGANIZATION AND EVALUATION

Most weeks, we will use only the Monday and Wednesday hours for lectures, but we
have scheduled two classes on Fridays to make up for missed lectures due to a holiday and
possible emergencies. In addition to these common meetings, there will be undergraduate and
graduate sections in the course, with the number of undergraduate sections depending on
enrollment.

All students will take an hour test on October 24 (counting for 20 percent of the overall
grade). Attendance and participation in sections will count for 20 percent for all.

In addition, undergraduates will write an essay of approximately 15 pages, with minimal

additional reading required other than readings on the course syllabus, due in early January (30
percent), and a final exam in the January examination period (30 percent).

Graduate students can either follow the undergraduate model, submitting an essay of
approximately 15 pages and taking the final exam; or they can opt for a research paper of 25 to
30 pages and be exempted from the final examination. The research paper will count for 60
percent of the overall grade.

All essay and research paper topics must be cleared with the instructor, and if time and
numbers allow outlines or drafts of papers will be discussed in sections.

LECTURE SCHEDULE AND READINGS

1. INTRODUCTION (September 17)
No readings assigned.

2. SOME ANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES (September 19)

●McFaul, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution, chap. 1, pp. 1-29.
*Valerie Bunce, “Comparing East and South,” Journal of Democracy, 6 (July 1995), pp. 87-100.
*Charles King, “Post-Postcommunism: Transition, Comparison, and the End of ‘Eastern
Europe,’” World Politics, 53 (October 2000). SKIM pp 143-154, READ pp 154-160 and
166-172, SKIP pp. 160-166.
*Thomas Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm,” Journal of Democracy, 13 (January
2002), pp. 5-21.
*Andrei Shleifer and Daniel Treisman, “A Normal Country,” Foreign Affairs, 83 (March-April
2004), pp. 20-38.
*Richard Pipes, “Flight from Freedom: What Russians Think and Want,” Foreign Affairs, 83
(May-June 2004), pp. 9-15.
 GOV 1243/2007, p. 3

3. LEGACIES: REMOTE AND NEAR, GIFTS AND BURDENS (September 24, 26)
●Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted, Intro and chaps. 1-3, pp. 1-85.
●McFaul, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution, chap. 2, pp. 33-60.
■Ronald Grigor Suny, The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of
the Soviet Union, chap. 4, pp. 127-160.

4. THE SOVIET COLLAPSE: AN ENDING AND A REBIRTH (October 1, 3)

●McFaul, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution, chap. 3-5, pp. 61-204.
■Alexander Dallin, “Causes of the Collapse of the USSR,” Post-Soviet Affairs, vol. 8 (October-
December 1992), pp. 279-302.
●Kotkin, Armageddon Averted, chaps. 5-6 and part of 7, pp. 113-185.

5. THE NEW RUSSIA: DAUNTING DILEMMAS OF SIMULTANEOUS TRANSFORMATIONS (October

5, 10) Note: We are meeting Friday Oct 5 to make up for Columbus Day.
●McFaul, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution, chaps. 6-7, pp. 207-264.
●Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia, chaps. 1-4, pp. 1-113.
*Ronald Grigor Suny, “Provisional Stabilities: The Politics of Identities in Post-Soviet Eurasia,”
International Security 24 (Winter 1999/2000). READ ONLY THE SECTION CALLED
“Russia’s Identity Crisis,” pp. 147-152.
●Richard Sakwa, “Putin’s Leadership” and Colton and McFaul, “Putin and the Attenuation of
Russian Democracy,” in Herspring, Putin’s Russia, pp. 13-52.

5. THE CENTRAL STATE: “STATENESS,” CONSTITUTION AND RULE OF LAW, A WEAK

LEGISLATURE, AN OVERPOWERING BUT UNDERPOWERED EXECUTIVE (October 15, 17)
*Timothy J. Colton and Cindy Skach, “A Fresh Look at Semipresidentialism: The Russian
Predicament,” Journal of Democracy, vol. 16 (July 2005), pp. 113-26.
●McFaul, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution, chaps. 9-10, pp. 309-371.
*The Constitution of the Russian Federation (http://www.constitution.ru/en/10003000-01.htm)
●Kathryn Hendley, “Putin and the Law,” in Herspring, Putin’s Russia, pp. 99-124.
■Paul Chaisty, “Legislative Politics in Russia,” chap. 7 in Archie Brown, Contemporary Russian
Politics (Oxford University Press, 2001), pp 103-120.
■Eugene Huskey, “Legislative-Executive Relations in the Yeltsin Era,” chap. 8 in Brown,
Contemporary Russian Politics, pp. 121-130.
●Thomas F. Remington, “Putin, the Duma, and Political Parties,” in Herspring, Putin’s Russia,
pp. 53-73.
●Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia, chap. 7, pp. 193-245.

6. THE REST OF THE STATE: FEDERALISM, REGIONALISM, LOCAL AND REGIONAL

GOVERNMENT (October 22)
■Alfred Stepan, “Russian Federalism in Comparative Perspective,” Post-Soviet Affairs 16
(April-June 2000), pp. 133-76.
■Jeff Kahn, “What is the New Russian Federalism?” in Brown, Contemporary Russian Politics,
chap. 27, pp. 374-383.
 GOV 1243/2007, p. 4

●Nikolai Petrov and Darrell Slider, “Putin and the Regions,” in Herspring, Putin’s Russia, pp.
75-98.
■Nikolai Petrov, “Regional Models of Democratic Development,” in McFaul, Petrov and
Ryabov, Between Dictatorship and Democracy (Carnegie Endowment, 2004), pp. 239-
267.
■Tomila Lankina, “Local Government and Ethnic and Social Activism in Russia,” in Brown,
Contemporary Russian Politics, chap. 29, pp. 398-411.

HOUR TEST (October 24)

7. MASS POLITICS, A: PARTIES AND ELECTIONS (October 29, 31)

■Stephen Whitefield, “Partisan and Party Divisions in Post-Communist Russia,” chap. 16 in
Brown, Contemporary Russian Politics, pp. 235-243.
●McFaul, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution, chap. 8, pp. 265-306.
●Colton and McFaul, Popular Choice and Managed Democracy. READ entire book but FOCUS
on Chaps. 1-3 and 7.
*Richard Sakwa, “The 2003-2004 Russian Elections and Prospects for Democracy,” Europe-
Asia Studies 57 (May 2005), pp. 369-398.

8. MASS POLITICS, B: INFORMAL POLITICS (November 5, 7)

■Andrew Wilson, Virtual Politics: Faking Democracy in the Post-Soviet World (Yale University
Press, 2005), part or all of chaps. 1, 2, 4, 6 and conclusion, pp. 1-29, 33-48, 73-88, 119-
29, 266-73.
●Alena Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works, chaps. 1-4, pp. 10-114.

NOTE: There will be no class the week of November 12 because of Veterans’ Day and the
AAASS convention.

9. MASS POLITICS, C: POLITICAL CULTURE AND CIVIL SOCIETY (November 19, 21)
■Stephen Whitefield, “Political Culture and Post-Communism,” in S. Whitefield (ed.), Political
Culture and Post-Communism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 1-14.
■Jeffrey W. Hahn, “Yaroslavl’ Revisited: Assessing Continuity and Change in Russian Political
Culture since 1990” in Whitefield, pp. 148-179.
■Richard Rose, “Russia as an Hour-Glass Society: A Constitution without Citizens,” East
European Constitutional Review, vol. 4 (Summer 1995), pp. 34-42.
●Howard, The Weakness of Civil Society.
*James L. Gibson, “Social Networks, Civil Society, and the Prospects for Consolidating Russia's
Democratic Transition,”American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 45, No. 1. (Jan.,
2001), pp. 51-68.
*Masha Lipman, “Constrained or Irrelevant: The Media in Putin’s Russia,” Current History
(Oct. 2005), pp. 319-324.
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10. MASS POLITICS, D: ETHNICITY, SECESSIONISM AND INTERNAL CONFLICT (November 26,
28)
■Stephen E. Hanson, “Ideology, Interests, and Identity: Comparing the Soviet and Russian
Secession Crises,” in Mikhail Alexseev, ed., Center-Periphery Conflict in Post-Soviet
Russia (St. Martin’s, 1999), pp. 15-46.
*Henry Hale, “Making and Breaking Ethnofederal States: Why Russia Survives Where the
USSR Fell,” Perspectives on Politics 3 (March 2005), pp. 55-70.
■Matthew Evangelista, The Chechen Wars: Will Russia Go the Way of the Soviet Union?
(Brookings Institution Press, 2002), Chapters 2-4, pp. 11-85.
■Valery Tishkov, “The Sons of War,” in Valery Tishkov, Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society
(University of California Press, 2004), pp. 90-106.
*Julie Wilhelmsen, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: The Islamisation of the Chechen
Nationalist Movement,” Europe-Asia Studies 57 (January 2005), pp. 35-59.
*Ahmet A. Yarlykapov, “Separatism and Islamic Extremism in the Ethnic Republics of the
North Caucasus,” Russian Analytical Digest #22 (June 2007), pp. 6-11.
*John Russell, “Ramzan Kadyrov – the Chechen Face of Russia’s Beautiful South,” forthcoming
in Nationalities Papers (30 pp)
*Anna Matveeva, “Chechnya: Dynamics of War and Peace,” Problems of Post-Communism 54
(May/June 2007), pp. 3-17.

11. THE POLITICS OF THE ECONOMY (December 3, 5)

●Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia, chaps. 5-6, pp. 114-192.
*Clifford Gaddy and Barry Ickes, “Russia’s Virtual Economy,” Foreign Affairs 77 (September-
October 1998), pp. 53-67.
■Joel S. Hellman, “Russia’s Transition to a Market Economy: A Permanent Redistribution?” in
Andrew C. Kuchins, ed., Russia after the Fall (Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace 2002), pp. 93-109.
*Clifford Gaddy, “The Russian Economy in the Year 2006,” Post-Soviet Affairs vol. 23 (January
2007), pp. 38-49.
*Marshall Goldman, “Russia’s Middle Class Muddle,” Current History (Oct. 2006), pp. 321-
326.
*Vladimir Milov, Leonard Coburn and Igor Danchenko, “Russia’s Energy Policy, 1992-2005,”
Eurasian Geography and Economics vol. 47(3) (May 2006), pp. 285-313.
●Ledeneva, How Russia Really Works, chaps. 5-7, pp. 115-188.

12. SOCIAL POLICY (December 10)

*Russian Federation: Reducing Poverty through Growth and Social Policy Reform, chapters 6,
8, and 9, pp. 67-76, 88-112.
■David E. Powell, “Putin, Demography, Health, and the Environment,” in Dale Herspring (ed.)
Putin’s Russia, 2nd edition, pp. 89-118.
*”Reforming Healthcare,” in OECD Economic Surveys: Russian Federation 2006, pp. 187-219.
 GOV 1243/2007, p. 6

13. DOMESTIC POLITICS AND RUSSIA IN REGIONAL AND WORLD POLITICS (December 12, 14)
Note: December 14 is a Friday; this hour is being held in reserve in case unforeseen
circumstances cause an earlier lecture to be cancelled.
■Margot Light, “Post-Soviet Russian Foreign Policy: The First Decade,” chap. 30 in Brown,
Contemporary Russian Politics, pp. 419-428.
●Andrei Tsygankov, “Putin and Russian Foreign Policy,” in Herspring, Putin’s Russia, pp. 199-
217.
*Dmitri Trenin, “Russia Leaves the West,” Foreign Affairs vol. 85 (July/August 2006), pp. 87-
96.
*Fiona Hill, “Moscow Discovers Soft Power,” Current History (Oct. 2006), pp. 341-347.
*Dmitri Trenin, “Russia Redefines Itself and Its Relations with the West,” The Washington
Quarterly 30 (Spring 2007), pp. 95-105.
*Celeste Wallander, “Russian Transimperialism and its Implications,” The Washington
Quarterly 30 (Spring 2007), pp. 107-122.
*Pavel Baev, “Chimera of a New Cold War in U.S.-Russian Relations,” AAASS NewsNet
(October 2007).

NOTE: I am likely to add some additional short readings on foreign policy and Russia’s future,
depending on developments during the course of the semester.

14. WHERE IS RUSSIA HEADING? (December 17)

●Fish, Democracy Derailed in Russia, part of chap. 8, pp. 258-271.
●Dale Herspring, “Conclusion,” in Putin’s Russia, pp. 219-224.
*Lilia Shevtsova, “Russia’s Ersatz Democracy,” Current History (Oct. 2006), pp. 307-314.
*Daniel Treisman, “Putin’s Silovarchs,” Orbis (Jan 2007), pp. 141-153.
*Nikolay Petrov, “The Full Cycle of Political Evolution in Russia: From Chaotic to
Overmanaged Democracy,” PONARS Policy Memo #413, December 2006.
*Zbigniew Brzezinski, “Living With Russia,” The National Interest, no. 61 (Fall 2000), pp. 5-
16.
*Thomas Garza, “Conservative Vanguard? The Politics of New Russia’s Youth,” Current
History (Oct. 2006), pp. 327-333.