Fall/Winter Timetable

JRA2321H1S L0101

Undergraduate Course Code: JRA401H1S L0101

Topics in Comparative Politics V

State and Society in Central Asia

Themes

More than 25 years after Soviet collapse, Central Asia (and its neighbour Afghanistan) continue to see vexed relations between state and society. In this course, we ask: 1) What impact did Soviet-style modernization have and what are the legacies of that modernization project? 2) How have relations between society and state changed since 1991? 3) How do individuals and groups relate to the state? 4) What role do religion and ethnicity play in political and social life? 5) How do the experiences of these six states (Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) vary? Although this is a political science course, about half of our readings are by anthropologists, historians, sociologists, and others.

Texts

TBA

Format and Requirements

Active participation in seminar discussions, close reading of assigned texts, in-class presentations, analytic papers, and research papers.