PSC 351—Politics of Eastern European Nations

This course introduces students to political systems in Eastern Europe, covering their governments, policies, party systems, shared history, and social movements. Many of the Eastern European countries have experienced multiple regime changes over the past 100 years, and all of them were influenced at least indirectly by the collapse of the Soviet Union, which led to market-based economic reform as well as democratization. The course compares the institutions and policy choices made by different Eastern European countries and then explores how those choices contributed to the different outcomes experienced by these countries. As part of this comparison, students consider the impacts of other factors such as nationalism, democratic values, political stability, the nature of economic reform, and ethnic fractionalization. While the course exposes students to general theories about economic development and democratization, it also illustrates the logic of such theories using historical examples from Eastern Europe.