Resources

RES Program Description

For Students Preparing to Take the RES Comprehensive Examinations in AY 2010-2011

Program Philosophy. The past two decades have brought enormous changes to Russia and the other countries of Eurasia. Designed with those changes in mind, the RES program aims to strike a balance between the need for intellectual flexibility and the need for academic structure. The largest emphasis is on the study of Russia, but attention is also given to the non-Russian regions of the former USSR.

Program Subfields.  The MA program is built around six subfields:   (1) The Rise and Fall of Communism in Russia and Eurasia;  (2) Post-Communist Politics;  (3) Post-Communist Economies; (4) Post-Communist National Identities and Ethnic Relations; (5) Post-Communist Civil Societies; and (6) Post-Communist Foreign and Security Policies.  M.A. concentrators are responsible for the first subfield and two other subfields of their own choosing. This choice of subfields should guide students as they select courses and prepare for the RES comprehensive examination.   

Course Requirements.  Concentrators take at least six RES courses in the field for credit.  Students interested in combining a RES concentration with a specialization in Emerging Markets must take at least four RES courses, plus two of the non-RES courses included in the Emerging Markets curriculum.  All RES students are encouraged to participate in the non-credit Current Affairs seminar.  

Language Requirement. RES concentrators must pass the Russian-language proficiency examination. In special cases, students with an advanced knowledge of another language widely used in Eurasia may apply to Professor Parrott for permission to satisfy the proficiency requirement in that language. If permission is granted, the examination must be passed at the beginning of the student’s first semester at SAIS. Individuals considering this option should note that aside from Russian, SAIS does not teach any of the other regional languages.

Campus Options. In general, RES students may be admitted to the Washington, D.C., campus or the Bologna Center, but the program requires that students with a beginning knowledge of Russian spend both years in Washington. The Bologna Center offers only intermediate-level Russian-language instruction.  Students who are uncertain about their ability to work at this level should contact the director of Russian-language instruction in Washington, DC.

M.A. Written Comprehensive Exam (Capstone).  Second-year concentrators must pass the RES written comprehensive exam.  The written exam is given twice each year, at the end of the intersession and the end of the spring semester.  In the written exam, students answer questions about the three subfields that they have prepared.

Recommended readings and illustrative examination topics for each subfield are listed below.   

 1.   THE RISE AND FALL OF COMMUNISM IN RUSSIA AND EURASIA

Recommended Readings

  • Nicholas Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, 5th edition (1992), chs. 30-39, 40-42.
  • Jerry Hough and Merle Fainsod, How the Soviet Union is Governed (1979), chs. 1-7.
  • Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, 1917-1991 (1992), chs. 3-4, 6-8, 12-14.
  • Peter Reddaway, “The Development of Dissent in the USSR,” in William Griffith, ed., The Soviet Empire: Expansion and Detente  (1976).
  • Timothy Colton, The Dilemma of Reform in the Soviet Union, rev. ed. (1986).
  • Victor Zaslavsky, “Success and Collapse: Traditional Soviet Nationality Policy,” in Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (eds.), Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (1993).
  • Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor (1996).
  • Alexander Dallin, "Causes of the Collapse of the USSR," Post-Soviet Affairs, no. 4, 1992, pp. 279-302.

Illustrative Topics

  • Major turning points in the development of the Soviet system. 
  • The role of ideology in the Soviet system. 
  • Main features of the Soviet economic system; its economic strengths and weaknesses. 
  • Causes and consequences of mass terror under Stalin. 
  • Effects of World War II on the Soviet domestic system. 
  • The nature and limits of destalinization in the Khrushchev era. 
  • Reasons for Khrushchev's fall from power. 
  • Soviet economic trends from Stalin to Gorbachev; reasons for the slowdown of economic growth. 
  • Dissent in the post-Stalin period; changes in the role of the intelligentsia from Khrushchev to Gorbachev. 
  • The historical roots and nature of the crisis in the late Soviet era. 
  • Political structure of the Soviet state; implications for the fate of the Soviet political system. 
  • Gorbachev’s accomplishments and failures as a leader. 
  • Alternative explanations of the collapse of the USSR, and the evidence for each.

 2.  Post-Communist Politics

Recommended Readings

  • Michael McFaul, Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin (2001).
  • Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinsky, The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms:  Market  Bolshevism against Democracy (2001), chs. 1, 5-9, Epilogue.
  • Stephen White, Richard Rose, and Ian McAllister, How Russia Votes (1996).
  • Archie Brown, ed., Contemporary Russian Politics:  A Reader (2001), Sections 1-5, 9, 11-12, and ch. 23.
  • Ellen Mickiewicz, Changing Channels: Television and the Struggle for Power in Russia (1997).
  • Peter H. Solomon and Todd S. Foglesong, Courts & Transition in Russia: The Challenge of Judicial Reform (2000), chs. 1-8.

Illustrative Topics

  • Major turning points in Russian politics since 1991.
  • Sources of continuity and sources of discontinuity between the Soviet and the post-Soviet political systems.
  • Key decisions that affected the design of Russia’s post-communist political system.  
  • Factors facilitating and impeding democratization in Russia and other post-Soviet states.
  • Similarities and differences among the post-communist political outcomes in Russia and the other post-Soviet states.
  • Sources of political power in post-Soviet Russia, and changes in these sources over time.  
  • Main features of electoral politics in post-communist Russia. 
  • Interaction between political reform and economic reform in Russia and other post-Soviet states. 
  • Causes and consequences of the Russian political crisis in the fall of 1993. 
  • Trends in Russian regional politics and trends in center-periphery relations. 
  • Similarities and differences between Russian politics under Yeltsin and politics under Putin.

 3.  POST-COMMUNIST ECONOMIES

Recommended Readings

  • Anders Aslund, Building Capitalism: The Transformation of the Former Soviet Bloc (2001).
  • Thane Gustafson, Capitalism Russian-Style (1999).
  • Juliet Johnson, A Fistful of Rubles: The Rise and Fall of the Russian Banking System (2000).
  • Joseph R. Blasi, et al., Kremlin Capitalism (1996).
  • Philip Hanson, “What Kind of Capitalism is Developing in Russia?” Communist Economies and Economic Transformation 9, no. 1 (1997), 27-42.
  • Joel Hellman, “Winners Take All: The Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions,” World Politics 50 (January 1998), 203-34.
  • Brown, Contemporary Russian Politics, Section 6.

Illustrative Topics

  • “Shock therapy” and its feasibility under Russian political and economic conditions.
  • Western policies toward economic reform in the post-Soviet states. 
  • Main trends in the post-Soviet states’ foreign-trade patterns and investment flows. 
  • Reasons for the different outcomes of economic reform in the Baltic States, Ukraine, and Russia. 
  • The pattern of Russian privatization, and its economic consequences. 
  • Origins and economic behavior of Russian commercial banks. 
  • Manifestations and economic consequences of the informal economy in Russia and Ukraine.
  • Causes of the 1998 economic crisis in Russia, and its consequences for the Russian economic system. 
  • Causes of the revival of Russia‘s economy since 1999, and its long-term sustainability. 
  • Russia and other post-Soviet countries as petro-states: implications for economic reform.  

4.  Post-Communist National Identities and Ethnic Relations

Recommended Readings

  • Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (eds.), New States, New Politics: Building the Post-Soviet Nations (1997).
  • Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (1996).
  • Graham Smith (ed.), The Baltic States: The National Self-Determination of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania (1994), chs. 1-8.
  • Brown, Contemporary Russian Politics, Section 8.
  • Vera Tolz, “Conflicting ‘Homeland Myths’ and Nation-State Building in Postcommunist Russia,” Slavic Review 57, no. 2 (Summer 1998).
  • Anatol Lieven, Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power (1998).
  • Galina M. Yemelianova, “Islam and Nation Building in Tatarstan and Dagestan of the Russian Federation,” Nationalities Papers 27, no. 4 (December 1999).
  • Andrew Wilson, Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s (1997), chs. 1-5.
  • Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, 2nd edition (1994), chs. 9-14.
  • Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (1988), ch. 29.

Illustrative Topics

  • The early Soviet policy of “indigenization” and changes in Soviet nationalities policy over time. 
  • The role of Russian nationalism in sustaining the Soviet system, and in undermining it.  
  • Connections between social structure and national consciousness in the USSR’s constituent republics.
  • Comparative impact of Soviet rule in Central Asia and the western USSR. 
  • Varieties of nationalism and ethnic sentiment in the post-Soviet states. Approaches to citizenship and migration in the post-Soviet states. 
  • Impact of states’ ethnic composition on their foreign relations. 
  • Sources and limits of Russian nationalism in the post-Soviet period.  
  • Causes of post-Soviet conflicts in Chechnya. 
  • Development of post-communist ethnic relations in the Baltic States. 
  • Causes post-Soviet conflicts in the southern Caucasus.
  • National identity in post-communist Ukraine.
  • National identity and ethnic conflict in Central Asia.  

5. Post-Communist Civil Societies

Recommended Readings

  • Marc Howard, “The Weakness of Postcommunist Civil Society,” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 1 (2002).
  • Richard Sakwa, Russian Politics and Society (revised edition, 1996), chs. 12-13.
  • Brown, Contemporary Russian Politics, chs. 7, 20-23.
  • Igor Kon, The Sexual Revolution in Russia (1995).
  • George Demko et al. (eds.), Population under Duress:  The Geodemography of Post-Soviet Russia (1998), chs. 2-4, 6.
  • Nicholas Eberstadt, “Russia: Too Sick to Matter?” Policy Review 95 (June-July 1999), 3-24.
  • Murray Feshbach, Ecological Disaster: Cleaning up the Hidden Legacy of the Soviet Regime (1995), Introduction, chs. 1-6.
  • Leslie L. McGann, “The Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Aleksii II and the Russian State: An Unholy Alliance?”  Demokratizatsiia 7, no. 1 (Winter 1999), 12-27.
  • Phil Williams, ed., Russian Organized Crime: The New Threat?  (1997), Introduction, ch. 1.
  • Vadim Volkov, “Violent Entrepreneurship in Post-Communist Russia,” Europe-Asia Studies 51, no. 5 (July 1999).
  • William M. Reisinger, Arthur H. Miller, and Vicki L. Hesli, “Russians and the Legal System:  Mass Views and Behavior in the 1990s,” Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics 13, no. 3 (September 1997).

Illustrative Topics

  • Significance of “civil society” as an ideological concept and an analytical category. 
  • Legacies of communism for the social structure and societal organization of the post-Soviet states. 
  • Main population and health trends in the post-Soviet states, and their political and economic implications. 
  • Educational trends in the post-Soviet states, and their political and economic implications. 
  • Scope of the post-communist revival of religion, and the implications for societal autonomy. 
  • Stimuli and obstacles to the development of NGOs in the post-Soviet states. 
  • Russian sexual mores and behavior under communism and in the post-communist era. 
  • Changes in patterns of domestic and interstate migration in the post-communist era. 
  • Organized crime and the development of “uncivil society” in the post-Soviet states.  

 6. Post-Communist Foreign and Security Policies 

Recommended Readings

  • R. Craig Nation, Black Earth, Red Star: A History of Soviet Security Policy, 1917-1991 (1992), chs. 1-8.
  • Angela Stent, Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse, and the New Europe (1999), chs. 6-9.
  • Robert Legvold et al. (eds.), Russia and the West: The 21st Century Security Environment (1999).
  • Roy Allison and Lena Jonson (eds.), Central Asian Security:  The New International Context (2001), chs. 1, 3, 5-7, 9.
  • Gilbert Rozman et al. (eds.), Russia and East Asia:  The 21st Century Security Environment (1999).
  • Neil Malcolm et al., (eds.), Internal Factors in Russian Foreign Policy (1996).
  • Robert V. Barylski, The Soldier in Russian Politics: Duty, Dictatorship, and Democracy under Gorbachev and Yeltsin (1997), chs. 3-4, 9-11.

Illustrative Topics

  • Major turning points in Soviet foreign relations, 1921-1991. 
  • Continuities and discontinuities between Soviet and post-Soviet Russian foreign policies. 
  • Relationship between the domestic system and foreign policies in the Soviet period, and in the post-Soviet period. 
  • Post-communist Russian foreign-policy objectives and regional priorities. 
  • Dynamics of the post-Soviet adjustment in Russian-American relations. Implications of NATO enlargement for Russian foreign policy and foreign relations.
  • Russian relations with Germany: common and divergent interests. 
  • Russian relations with China and the post-Soviet fate of triangular diplomacy. Evolution of post-Soviet Russian policy toward Central Asia.
  • Ukrainian policy toward Russia, Europe, and the United States.
  • Georgian relations with Russia and the West. Uzbekistani policy toward Russia, the West, and China.
  • Responses of the post-Soviet states to the U.S. war on terrorism; implications for their foreign relations.