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May 01, 2026
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GOV 319 - Making Sense of Putin’s Russia: From Perestroika to Managed Democracy
Description
This course examines the structural factors that led to the weakening of the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s; its last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempts to reinvigorate his country and its communist system through his policies of perestroika and glasnost’; how these reforms engendered the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the USSR; the creation of the modern Russian regime under Boris Yeltsin, whose presidency witnessed unprecedented corruption, kleptocracy, staggering inflation, and the emergence of the Russian mafiya; and the transition of power to Vladimir Putin. We conduct a deep dive into Putin’s attempts to “make Russia great again” by embracing the tactics of his security state (KGB) roots and reasserting control over territories that had formerly belonged to the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. We examine Putin’s crackdown on the free press; civil rights; civil society/NGOs, and the wars he unleashed on Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine. We examine the evolution of youth culture; the position of women, members of the LGBT community, and non-Russian ethnic groups; the rise of the right-wing; climate change, and environmental problems related to Russia’s fossil-fuel-based mono-economy; and topics of geopolitical and economic significance to the US government and its allies. Same as HIS 319 /IST 319 /RUS 319 .
Credits: 1
Course Attribute(s):
SOCS Gen Ed: Social Science Req
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