US Democracy at the Crossroads II: Russia: Failed Transition

Co-sponsored Colloquium Series with Professors Georgii Derlugian and Daniel Treisman

Monday, March 13, 2006
2:00 PM - 5:30 PM
UCLA
6275 Bunche Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095

The Center for European and Eurasian Studies and the UCLA Center for Social Theory and Comparative History invite the public to a colloquium by Georgii Derlugian, Professor of History, Northwestern University and Daniel Treisman, Professor of Political Science, UCLA.

What is the nature of the political, and maybe also the economic, regime in Russia today, as well as the recent historical trajectory that brought it into being. What lies behind the apparent return to authoritarianism? What happened to neoliberalism? How should we characterize international relations between Russia and the US, and what is the likely direction? Derluguian and Jowitt explore and debate this complicated questions.

Georgii Derlugian: His most recent publications include Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-Systems biography (University of Chicago Press, 2005) and The Politics of Identity in a Russian Borderland Province: The Kuban Neo-Cossack Movement, 1989-1996. Named in May 2001 Carnegie Scholar of Vision for the innovative project focusing on the relationship between globalization, corruption, mafia, and the democratic counter-strategy of bolstering the international judiciary.

Daniel Treisman: Co-author of, Without a Map: Poltical Tactics and Economic Reform in Russia (MIT, with Andrei Schleifer) builds on Professor Treisman's experience with a USAID team advising Russia's finance ministry on tax reform. It examines the political constraints faced by Russian economic reformers, and explains how the weak Russian state maneuvered to coopt opponents by manipulating economic "rents".

The lecture is free and open to the public.

For more information please contact:

Tom Mertes

Mertes@ucla.edu

Sponsor(s): Center for European and Russian Studies, Burkle Center for International Relations, Center for Social Theory and Comparative History