M. Steven Fish
Professor of Political Science
Phone: (510) 643-1943
Office Location: 744 Barrows
Office Hours: F 2:00-4:00
Fall 2008 Course: PS191-2 Junior Seminar: Foundations of Political Thought and Action (Travers Course) ,
PS200 Major Themes in Comparative Analysis
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Professor Fish received his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1993. His research and teaching interests include post-Soviet politics, democratization and regime change, and general comparative politics. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses on these topics. He is the author of Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2005), Democracy from Scratch: Opposition and Regime in the New Russian Revolution (Princeton University Press, 1995) and a coauthor of Postcommunism and the Theory of Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2001). He has also published articles in Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Comparative Political Studies, Current History, Diplomatic History, East European Constitutional Review, East European Politics and Societies, Europe-Asia Studies, The Journal of Communist Studies, Journal of Democracy, Peace and Change, Post-Soviet Affairs, Slavic Review, World Politics and numerous edited volumes. |
- PS191-2 - Junior Seminar: Foundations of Political Thought and Action
Syllabus - PS200 - Major Themes in Comparative Analysis
Syllabus
- Democratization and Economic Liberalization
- Diversity, Conflict, and Democracy
- Stronger Legislatures, Stronger Democracy
- Does Diversity Hurt Democracy?
- Islam and Authoritarianism
- Mongolia's Democratization
- Political Parties and Political Development in Bulgaria
- Noncharismatic Personalism in Contemporary Political Parties
- Four Fallacies about the Russo-Georgian Conflict (Mercury News)
- Kenya's Real Problem (Washington Post)
- Repressing Women, Repressing Democracy (LA Times)
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Winner, Best Book Prize, Comparative Democratization section, American Political Science Association
"This is an important work, and should be read both by Russia specialists
and those interested in comparative democratization. It is very well written
and its presentation is easy to follow, making it amenable for undergraduate course
use as well. With this book, Fish has raised the bar for future work on Russian politics." "All serious scholars of contemporary Russia should engage with what Fish has written here, in what is undoubtedly one of the book books on Russia today." ---International Affairs |
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| "This book does a superb job of deparochializing Soviet
and post-Soviet studies. But more importantly, Fish sheds
new theoretical light on the dynamic of the transition
from ideocratic authoritarianism…Elegantly written, conceptually
original, and intellectually provocative, Fish's book
is a most illuminating contribution to the growing body
of scholarship on political democratization and the problematic
transitions from state socialism." ---American Political Science Review "A theoretically sophisticated, original, and convincing
account of the emergence of the democratic opposition
in the Gorbachev period and after, and the reasons for
its continuing weakness, Democracy from Scratch
is one of the most important contributions to the political
science of the new Russia yet published. It questions
much conventional wisdom and should reshape important
debates." |
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