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Honors 248C
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Changing Worlds: Economic, Political, and Social Developments in the Former Soviet Bloc
Professor Peter Murrell
I HAVE NOT TAUGHT THIS COURSE SINCE SPRING 2002.
POSSIBLY I WILL TEACH IT AGAIN SOMETIME.
IN WHICH CASE THE FOLLOWING GIVES YOU A VERY APPROXIMATE IDEA OF WHAT THE COURSE WOULD BE LIKE.
Web page updated on Wednesday, November 16, 2005 .
Tuesday and Thursday, 12:30 pm to 1:45 pm, Anne Arundel Hall (ANA) Room 0100, Spring 2002
Click here for the syllabus, readings, and course requirements for .
Course Description: The
fall of the Soviet system has added a large number of nations to the list of
aspiring capitalist democracies. The experiences of these countries constitute
experiments in the creation of new societies that are relevant to all social
sciences, especially economics. The success or failure of these experiments
will have a profound influence on human thought and world geopolitics.
This course analyzes the processes of change in Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union and uses this analysis to further the understanding of the
workings of economic, political, and social systems in general. It is a course
that combines elements of economics, political science, history, and geography.
The central goal is to develop knowledge of the causal mechanisms underlying
processes of socio-economic change, endeavoring to explain why some countries
are more successful than others.
In pursuing this goal, the course aims at the following features:
1. It introduces students to the "way economists think," about
economics and about politics. Thus, economic techniques—for example, game
theory, national income accounting, microeconomic theories of institutions, the
construction of economic models—are introduced in order to aid in the
understanding of the events in the former Soviet bloc. In some cases, students
will develop their own analyses in class and then these analyses will be made
more rigorous and formal by using the tools of economics.
2. Students learn many basic facts about an important part of the international
economic and political environment in which we live. Students will learn how
economists organize facts and how economists join these facts with analytical
tools to reach a better understanding of events.
3. By analyzing the consequences of post-Soviet reforms, the course considers
which institutions are necessary for an effective capitalist, democratic
society and what factors affect the functioning of those institutions. This
element of the course exposes students, in a simplified and practical way, to
ideas about the nature of economic progress that are at the forefront of
current economic research.
4. Students develop research skills by writing a paper, employing methodologies
learned in the course. During regular class sessions, the instructor and the
class apply these methodologies to events in countries that are better known
(such as Russia and Poland.) Then, each student individually applies the
methodologies to a lesser-known country, producing an analysis of why the
country has reached its present economic and political situation and predicting
what might happen in the future. Students use standard reference materials for
the paper as well as the world wide web for up-to-date information.
Many of the documents on this web
site are in Adobe PDF format. If your web browser is not already configured
with the Adobe Acrobat Reader (Version 3.0 or higher), you can download the
Adobe Acrobat Reader free of charge and then view or print these PDF files.
www.adobe.com
