Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 4 pm
Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies Colloquium
"The Russo-Georgian War and the Prospects for Democratization in Postcommunist Space," with M. Steven Fish, professor, Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science, University of California, Berkeley.
Sponsored by the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies and Center for Russian and East European Studies.
Abstract
How are conflicts around Russia's periphery affecting the prospects for democratization in Russia's neighbors and Russia itself? Is Russia's increasing assertiveness a sign of genuine resurgence--or weakness and vulnerability? What lessons have leaders and mass publics in Russia, the Caucasus, and other parts of the postcommunist world taken away from recent experiences, and are those lessons the right ones? What role has the United States played in recent developments in Eurasia and East Europe, and has its policy been constructive?
Speaker's Biography
M. Steven Fish is a professor in the Charles and Louise Travers Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research and teaching interests include post-Soviet politics, democratization and regime change, and general comparative politics. He is the author ofDemocracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2005),Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution (Princeton University Press, 1995), and a co-author of Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy(Princeton University Press, 2001).
Listen to the lecture here.
