CREECA Lecture Series Podcast

The object of study here is Ukraine, a highly corrupted former Soviet republic. Specifically, Osipian researches the market of writing and defending doctoral dissertations, also known as the dissertations market. He identifies providers of the service, as well as types of services they offer and the prices they charge. Such “dissertations for order” services are accompanied by other services that provide the necessary requirements for a doctorate. University faculty play three distinct roles in this business, including that of customers, ghost-writers, and gatekeepers. Osipian's analysis suggests that fighting the corrupt practice of ghost-writing dissertations with legal means is unlikely to bring any drastic changes, for as long as there is demand for such services, there will be supply. From the lecture, "Let Me Write a Dissertation for You: Faculty Misconduct, Corruption, and Doctoral Degree Fraud in Ukraine."

When you enter the field to collect data for your dissertation or thesis, what are some basic safety precautions you need to consider? What does it mean to receive informed consent from individuals in a Tajikistani village? This short talk will delve into these and other related topics for graduate students to consider as they prepare to enter the field.

The criminal justice system in Kazakhstan is full of contradictions: Soviet-era accusatorial bias in pre-trial detention and sentencing goes hand in hand with the pro-defendant bias in closing criminal cases. This paradoxical co-existence of seemingly contradictory biases fits well within the informal power map of the criminal justice system. The major reform—reducing prison population to decrease recidivism and minimize international shaming (coupled with more recent drives for closing cases on the basis of reconciliation, the total registration of crimes, and a zero tolerance approach to combating crime)—has been achieved only through changes in the incentive structure of the criminal justice system. The post-Soviet innovation of closing criminal cases of public prosecution based on reconciliation with the victim has proliferated in Kazakhstan because this matched both the incentives of the criminal justice system key actors and the demands of private actors who are involved in criminal proceedings. In contrast, other types of public participation, such as jury trials which implement the right to a fair trial, give teeth to adversarial proceedings, and cultivate judicial independence—requirements of the Constitution of Kazakhstan—have rarely been used because they disrupt existing power relationships within the law-enforcement system.

Friedman’s talk focuses on China’s foreign policy interests in the post-Mao era, with particular attention to future forecasts for China and Central Asia. Will China continue to dominate economically? What are some sources of resistance to this from wider Asia? And what is Russia's response to competing Chinese influence in Central Asia?

"Gluttony discourse" plays an important role in literature. Research on this topic shows food discourse narratives can be used as a tool to describe individuality, spirituality, mood, and the social status of the protagonist. Eating processes, cooking scenes, descriptions of food, and what and how the protagonist eats can all provide source readers with clues to the writer’s intent, as these scenes usually carry pragmatic national associations. However, in translation the difference between cooking habits, kitchen details, and features specific to dishes in the source and target cultures can result in misunderstandings. This issue assumes a serious dimension in translation studies. In this lecture, Dr. Odilova analyses different novels from Uzbek literature with narrative descriptions of food and eating habits. Odilova suggests some solutions to problems of intercultural communication and crossing cultural barriers in translation of fiction from Uzbek into English in the hopes of better defining a more in-depth description of the Uzbek national worldview.

On April 12, 2017, President Nursultan Nazarbayev proposed a new program called, in English, “The Third Modernization”, but it is in reality a program for the spiritual revival of Kazakhstan. It is the 3rd stage in the national revival, the first stage being political and the second stage economic. This 3rd stage includes points on national history, sacred geography, switching to the Latin alphabet, and the selection of 100 textbooks to be translated into Kazakh for use in universities in Kazakhstan. Schamiloglu's talk gives an overview of this program, which is now deeply embedded in Kazakhstan’s civic discourse.

The literature on Soviet politics teaches us that the lack of established, democratic procedures for leadership transitions exposed the USSR to succession crises. One might expect, then, that the authoritarian regimes dominating post-communist Central Asia would be prone to disruptive leadership transitions, and yet that has not been the case. In fact, if one leaves aside the tumultuous early years of Tajikistan’s independence, it is only in Kyrgyzstan—which boasts the region’s most competitive political environment—that one finds deeply disruptive succession crises, the latest of which is on full display this year. After a review of the transitions of power in Central Asia (including Azerbaijan) over the last quarter-century, Huskey uses, inter alia, the works of Barbara Geddes on personalism and Henry Hale on patronalism to seek to explain the political transitions paradox.

Russia’s interests in Central Asia are similar to those of China and the United States. Today, all three powers are mostly concerned with security in the region. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian troops were withdrawn from Central Asia, with the exception of those in Tajikistan and small forces on the Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan borders with China. Both Russia and China were threatened by the spillover of Islamic militancy, terrorism, and arms and drug trafficking from the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security bloc jointly led by China and Russia, now includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, India, and Pakistan, and is currently engaged in military, security, economic and technological cooperative efforts in Central Asia. In this talk, Maltsev discusses the current state of affairs and the development of international political cooperation in Central Asia since the fall of the Soviet Union.

On the morning of April 26, 1986, the world witnessed the worst nuclear disaster in history: the explosion of a reactor at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine. Dozens died of radiation poisoning, fallout contaminated half the continent, and thousands fell ill. In his lecture, Serhii Plokhii draws on new sources to lay bare the flaws of the Soviet nuclear industry, tracing the disaster to the authoritarian character of Communist party rule, the regime’s control of scientific information, and its emphasis on economic development over all else. Today, the risk of another Chernobyl, claims Plokhii, looms in the mismanagement of nuclear power in the developing world.

In its third year of power, Poland’s far right Law and Justice party enjoys greater public support than ever before. Where other far right parties have alienated large numbers of citizens, has Law and Justice found a way to make “fascism” acceptable again? With policies including family benefits, enforced labor laws, higher wages for the working poor, a government takeover of the courts, state promotion of racism, and fanatic nationalism, Law and Justice harks back to classical notions of “national socialism,” with the modern twist of allowing an opposition to exist (though with restrictions limiting its capacities). Can it work? What are the conditions for its success? Why is the party so difficult to challenge? Can it be replicated by Trump or in western Europe? The far right no longer just threatens to take power. In Poland and Hungary it already has, even while it faces critics even further to the right. Its model, moreover, is applicable elsewhere, including the United States. Poland helps us understand the sources of the far right’s new strength, and provides hints as to its potential weaknesses.​