aaus-list @ ukrainianstudies.org -- [aaus-list] COURSE ON CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE AT UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

[Taras Kuzio <t.kuzio@utoronto.ca>]

CANADA's ONLY FULL-TIME COURSE on CONTEMPORARY UKRAINE!

- Geared towards final year under graduates and graduate students
- No political science course prerequisites for under graduates
- Auditors welcome (no essay requirements!)

POL 499 and POL 2309, UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO
POST-COMMUNIST TRANSITIONS: UKRAINE IN THEORETICAL and COMPARATIVE
PERSPECTIVE.
Aims
1. To study the impact of the Soviet legacy on Ukrainešs post-Soviet
transition;
2. To study different aspects of Ukrainešs post-Soviet transition;
3. To place this study within a theoretical and comparative context with
other post-communist states and thereby integrate contemporary Ukrainian
studies within social sciences.
Objectives
By the end of the research seminar, students should:
1. Understand why Ukraine has developed in the manner it has since becoming
an independent state.
2. Appreciate why the transition is best understood in terms of both
progress and regression.
3. Compare  Ukrainešs transition with other post-communist and formerly
authoritarian states which have undergone transitions.
Seminar Location and Contact  Information
The seminar will be a reading and discussion seminar. All students will be
expected to have read the required readings for each week and come to class
prepared to discuss them.  The full-time course is over 27 weeks, of which
21 are seminar based.
The seminar will meet on Tuesday from 4-6pm in UC (University College) 65.
The instructor is Dr. Taras Kuzio, Resident Fellow, Centre Russian & East
European Studies.
Dr. Taras Kuzio will hold office hours by appointment at CREES, Munk Centre,
in Room 204N. He is also available for consultation on his office telephone:
416 946 8940. Monday-Thursday  between 10-12pm. His e-mail address is
t.kuzio@utoronto.ca.

SEMESTER 1 (2002)
Week 1. INTRODUCTION TO COURSE (10 September).
Week 2. UKRAINE  AND THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE USSR (17 September)
Key Questions
1. Why did Sovietology ignore or belittle the nationality question  in the
USSR?
2. How did events in Ukraine unfold in the Gorbachev era?
3. What were the strengths and weaknesses of the Ukrainian national
movement?
4.  What role did Leonid Kravchuk and Ukrainian national communists play in
the disintegration of the USSR and Ukrainešs drive to independence?
WEEK 3. SOVIET LEGACIES OF EMPIRE AND TOTALITARIANISM (24 September)
Key Questions:
1. What impact did the Tsarist empire and USSR have on the starting point of
Ukrainešs transition?
2. How did the Soviet totalitarian system influence Ukrainešs development
and starting point as an independent state?
3. The USSR was both nation building and nation destroying.  Did  both of
these processes take place in Ukraine?
4. How has Ukraine attempted to overcome these legacies?
5. Is there evidence of Œpath dependenceš in Ukrainešs post-Soviet
transition?
WEEK4. UKRAINEšS TRANSITION IN THEORETICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE (1
October)
Key Questions
1. Is the Œtransitologyš literature on democratic transitions developed for
other regions (Latin America, Southern Europe) applicable to post-communist
states, such as Ukraine?
2. Can  different regions with varying legacies be covered by one
theoretical framework?
3. Why have transitions in post-communist states been described as Œtripleš?
How does a Œtripleš differ from a Œquadrupleš transition?
4. What kind of transition is taking place in Ukraine?
WEEK 5. NATIONALISM IN UKRAINE (8 October)
Key Questions
1. can nationalism be good and bad, or is nationalism always bad?
2. what is Œbanal nationalismš? Is it the same as civic nationalism and
patriotism?
3. how is nationalism articulated in states, such as Ukraine?
4. do you agree with the commonly used narrow  definition of Œnationalismš
in Ukraine?
5. why is Russian nationalism weak in Ukraine and throughout the former
USSR?
WEEK 6. NATION BUILDING (15 October)
Key Questions
1. Why is the national question  still ignored by Œtransitologyš?
2. Civic or Ethnic statehood? Is this the only choice open to post-communist
states? Do pure civic states exist in practice?
3. Does nationalism play a negative or positive role (or both) in Ukrainešs
transition? 
4. Why did Kravchuk prioritise nation-building policies over political and
economic reform?
5. Compare and contrast  nation building and policies towards national
minorities in the Kravchuk and Kuchma erašs.
WEEK 7. NATIONAL  IDENTITY (22 October)
Key Questions
1. Is national identity fixed or always changing and adapting?
2. Is there a link between national identity, political consciousness,
efficacy and civil society in Ukraine?
3. Is it correct to focus on language as the only defining characteristic of
identity in Ukraine?
4. Did Ukraine adopt a territorial  or ethnic criteria for citizenship?
WEEK 8. REGIONALISM and CENTRE-PERIPHERY RELATIONS (29 October)
Key Questions
1. Is regionalism a hindrance to the establishment of a liberal democracy or
can this be overcome in multi-ethnic states through consociational
arrangements? 
2. Do regions matter in Ukraine or are they of secondary importance to other
factors such as language?
3. How successful have states policies been in integrating Ukrainešs
regions? 
4. Why is federalism unpopular, except in the case of the Crimea?
5. How have centre-periphery relations developed in the last decade?
WEEK 9.  INTER-ETHNIC AND CULTURAL CLEAVAGES
(5 November)
Key Questions
1. Can linguistic groups mobilize? Is there evidence of linguistic groups
mobilizing in Ukraine and the former USSR?
2. Why have Western and Russian predictions  of  inter-ethnic conflict in
Ukraine not occurred?
3. What are the roots of  the weakness of separatism in Ukraine?
4. Why did Crimean separatism prove to be relatively weak and separatism did
not break out in eastern Ukraine?
WEEK 10. POLITICS OF LANGUAGE and the ŒNATIONALIZING STATEš (12 November)
Key Questions
1. How would you describe Ukrainešs policy on languages?
2. Is Ukraine a Œnationalizing stateš?  What is a Œnationalizingš state?
3. Is there evidence of  unified linguistic groups with similar aims and
objectives? 
4. Have linguistic demands manifested themselves in elections?
5. Do Ukrainians vote for parties with linguistic-cultural demands?
WEEK 11. HISTORIOGRAPHY AND EDUCATION (19 November)
Key Questions
1. Are historical myths and legends common to all nation-states?
2. In what way has history writing and myths changed in Ukraine in relation
to what  was promoted in the USSR?
3. How do Ukrainian and Russian interpretations of Ukrainian history differ?
Are they diverging or merging in the post-Soviet era?
4. How has history teaching changed in education? What is the purpose of
Ukrainešs new history teaching?
WEEK 12. DISCUSSION FOLLOWING TWO FILMS (26 November)
ß ŗPR˛. US-Ukrainian documentary on the ŗKuchmagate˛ Crisis (March 2002);
ß ŗKilling the Story˛. BBC Documentary on the Murder of Opposition
Journalist H. Gongadze Which led to ŗKuchmagate˛ (April 2002);
WEEK 13. REVIEW OF  FIRST SEMESTERšs THEMES. DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF
SHORT ESSAY (3 December)

SEMESTER 2 (WINTER/SPRING 2003)
WEEK 14. STATE  BUILDING (7 January)
Key Questions
1. Do all post-communist states require state building  during their
transitions?
2. Why  is state building an important facet of Ukrainešs transition?
3. Why was Ukraine one of the last CIS states to adopt a post-Soviet
constitution?
4. Has Ukraine been successful in state building?
WEEK 15. CRAFTING NEW   INSTITUTIONS  (14 January)
Key Questions
1. Why are institutions central to democracies and market economies?
2. What institutions did Ukraine inherit from the USSR?
3. Were Ukrainešs new institutions influenced by  Soviet legacies?
4. What evidence is there that institutions have been corrupted and
manipulated by the Ukrainian political regime?
5. What are the main divisions of power between the executive, legislature,
government and judiciary in Ukraine?
WEEK 16. CONSTITUTIONAL POLITICS 21 January)
Key Questions
1. Why did the constitutional process take so long in Ukraine?
2. What were the main divisions  in the constitutional debate?
3. How did debate over the correct national symbols hold up  the
constitutional process?
4. Why did parliament quickly adopt its own draft constitution in June 1996?
5. How did it differ from the presidential draft?
WEEK 17. POLITICS OF ECONOMIC REFORM (28 January)
Key Questions
1. What economic reform prescriptions were given to Ukraine by international
financial organisations? Were they the same as for other post-communist
states?
2. Why was economic reform slower and more difficult in Ukraine than in
post-communist Central Europe?
3. Why  were market economic  reform policies  not consistent?
4. what relationship did the executive, government and parliament have
towards economic reform?
WEEK 18. ECONOMIC CRISIS and SOCIETY (4 February)
Key Questions
1. What elements of a market economy have been created?
2. How did economic reform and the creation of a market economy develop
after 1994 under Kuchma?
3. Why has the shadow economy remained so large?
4. How did national communists  become oligarchs?
5. Have Ukrainešs oligarchs Œcapturedš the Ukrainian state?
WEEK 19. PARLIAMENTARY POLITICS (11 February)
Key Questions
1. Compare and contrast Ukrainešs parliamentary-presidential system to
parliamentary and presidential systems in other post-communist states.
2. What role does parliament play in Ukraine? Why is it stronger than
parliaments in  other CIS states?
3. How have Ukrainian parliamentary politics evolved in the last decade?
4. What is the division of power between parliament and other state
institutions?
WEEK 20. READING WEEK (17-21 February)
WEEK 21. ELECTIONS (25 February)
Key Questions
1. Why are elections important for democracies?
2. Compare and contrast three presidential elections (1991, 1994, 1999) in
Ukraine.
3.     Compare and contrast four parliamentary elections (1990, 1994, 1998,
2002) in Ukraine.
WEEK 22. POLITICAL REGIME (4 March)
Key Questions
1. Define Ukrainešs regime within a political  science framework.
2. Have Soviet legacies influenced the evolution of the political regime in
Ukraine?
3. Ukraine has been defined as an Œauthoritarianš, Œcorporatistš, Œblackmail
stateš, and Œdelegative democracyš. What do these terms tell us about
Ukrainešs democratisation  and the nature of its political regime?
4. Compare and contrast Ukrainešs progress in democratisation to other
post-communist states.
WEEK 23. GENDER AND POST-COMMUNIST TRANSITION
(11 March)
Key Questions
6. Why are gender issues ignored in theories of nationalism?
7. What is the relationship between gender and nation building?
8. Compare and contrast gender issues in Ukraine and other post-communist
states.
9. Have gender issues progressed in post-Soviet Ukraine?
WEEK 24. CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL PARTIES (18 March)
Key Questions
1. Why is civil society still weak in Ukraine and do the authorities hinder
or  promote it?
2. Polls show that Ukrainians have weak feelings of efficacy. Why does
efficacy matter in a liberal democracy?
3. Is there a link between national identity and civil society in Ukraine?
4. Outline the key policy issues around which the three main groups of
parties (left, centre and national democrats) have been formed.
5. Why are ideological parties to be only found on the left and right, but
not in the centre?
6. Do opinion polls influence policies in the West and in post-communist
states, such as Ukraine?
WEEK 25. UKRAINIAN FOREIGN AND DEFENCE POLICY: KRAVCHUK ERA (25 March)
Key Questions
1. What theory of international relations is best suited for post-communist
states, such as Ukraine?
2. Is constructivism better than realism in understanding the sources of the
problems in the Russian-Ukrainian relationship?
3. Why has Ukraine prioritised defence of its sovereignty and territorial
integrity? Has it been successful in this endeavour?
4. What were the key  aspects of Ukrainešs  foreign and defence policy in
the Kravchuk era?
WEEK 26. FOREIGN and DEFENCE  POLICY: KUCHMA ERA (1 April)
Key Questions
1. What  changes have taken place in Ukrainian foreign policy in the Kuchma
erašs?
2. Define Ukrainešs Œmulti-vectorš foreign policy?
3. In whose interests has it been for Ukraine to balance between Europe and
Eurasia?
4. What areas of the CIS has Ukraine increased its activity in?
5. Why has Ukraine ruled out joining the Russian-Belarusian union?
WEEK 27. REVIEW OF SECOND SEMESTER THEMES. DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF LONG
ESSAY (8 April)