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Russian Politics - ARTS3848
 Students studying

   
   
 
Course Outline: School of Social Sciences
 
 
Campus: Kensington Campus
 
 
Career: Undergraduate
 
 
Units of Credit: 6
 
 
EFTSL: 0.12500 (more info)
 
 
Indicative Contact Hours per Week: 3
 
 
Enrolment Requirements:
 
 
Prerequisite: 24 units of credit in one of the following streams, International Relations, Politics or European Studies, or 72 uoc overall
 
 
Excluded: ARTS3844
 
 
CSS Contribution Charge:Band 1 (more info)
 
   
 
Further Information: See Class Timetable
 
  

Description

Subject Area: Politics
This course can also be studied in the following specialisations: European Studies; International Relations



Russia – its history, politics, economy and society – is examined in to test key political science concepts. Some familiarity with Western democracies is assumed, since part of the test is to compare how the concepts perform in analysing Western democracies and Russia. A common questions asked about Russia is: ‘are they like us, or are they completely different?’ It is a question that will force participants in the course to think hard about the nature of Russia and the adequacy of the concepts used to analyse it. Concepts include political culture, rational actor theory, neo-institutionalism, personalism and institutionalisation, Weberian categories of legitimacy, democratisation and transition theory, and various forms of geographical and economic determinism. Key aspects of Russian history – Orthodoxy, the Westernisers versus Slavophiles, the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalin’s terror, the transition from Soviet rule – are examined, as are the features of its geography that might be relevant to its development.


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