FACULTY OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY | Lecture
Honorary doctorate lecture – Vladimir Gel'man

Welcome to Professor Vladimir Gel'man's honorary doctorate lecture!

Title: 'Reassessing Post-Soviet Dynamics of the 1990s: Strategic Choices and Political Consequences'.

Vladimir Gel’man, professor at Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, is appointed honorary doctor at the Faculty of Culture and Society.

After the Soviet collapse, the newly established countries of post-Soviet Eurasia faced the "dilemma of simultaneity." They needed to address simultaneous changes in political regimes and economic systems while building new independent states on the ruins of the previous order. The priorities chosen by post-Soviet leaders and elites were largely influenced by the mechanism of the Soviet collapse and the political configurations of domestic actors in the 1990s.

For most post-Soviet countries, the emphasis on state building played a key role in shaping their subsequent democratic or authoritarian political trajectories. Meanwhile, Russia inherited many elements of the Soviet state’s legacies, but its leaders and elites had little incentives to build truly democratic institutions. On the contrary, the political and institutional foundations of personalist electoral authoritarianism in Russia were laid down during the 1990s and continued to develop throughout the twenty-first century.

Moderator

Professor Derek Stanford Hutcheson, Pro Dean of Faculty of Culture and Society.

The lecture is held in English.