POL3INR Authoritarian Empires: Russia, China and the Politics of Eurasia - Essay Assignment Help

The essay will be marked on the following general criteria:

1. Argumentation and writing: 50%.

Make sure that your argument is sustained throughout the essay. You should make a case in your essay, rather than simply telling a story. Keep your essay focused on the proposition. ‘Discuss’ means discuss the validity of the proposition, not a series of tangential observations. Look carefully at the precise words of the proposition (which is to be the title of the essay), and make sure that your entire essay is a response to it. At the very least, your essay should have a clear statement in the opening paragraphs along the lines of: 'This essay argues that…' followed by an assertion that relates clearly to the proposition, and that is substantiated in the rest of the essay. 

At all costs, avoid digressions from the topic. Imagine, as you are writing, that you are trying to convince an extremely sceptical reader of your viewpoint. Try to show an awareness of possible contrary arguments, particularly in the opening.

An essay without a clear argument is extremely unlikely to get above a H3.

Make sure that each paragraph addresses a specific idea. Usually, this idea will be clearly set out in the opening sentence (the topic sentence).

2. Research: 50%

Research should include at least 7 secondary sources (either refereed academic articles or academic books).

Short book reviews and articles on the internet may provide useful information, but they will not count towards the 7 secondary sources

Make sure that your research demonstrates engagement with the course. Listen to the lectures most relevant to the topic, and review the required and additional readings for that week.

Each of the following propositions and questions can be answered in many ways. There is no prescribed, ‘correct’ answer.

The list of suggested issues that follows each proposition is intended as a starting point for your research and to give you a sense of the possibilities of the topic. It is not intended as a structure or as a comprehensive guide for your response. Do NOT use the topics as subheadings.

1. ‘The Soviet Union would have survived if Gorbachev had learned from Deng Xiaoping and prioritised economic reform instead of political liberalisation.' Discuss.

Issues you might address include:

• Gorbachev’s glasnost and the dismantling of censorship
• Gorbachev’s semi-democratic elections to the Congress of People’s Deputies in 1989
• Gorbachev’s need to mobilise popular support against bureaucratic obstruction (see, eg Holmes, Leslie, (2013) 'Perestroika: A Reassessment,' Europe-Asia Studies, Vol.65(2), pp.186-197)
• Chris Miller’s argument that Gorbachev’s initial reform programme was deeply influenced by Deng Xiaoping’s industrial and agricultural reforms (Chris Miller, The struggle to save the Soviet economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapse of the USSR. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2016)

2. 'Putin’s United Russia and Xi Jinping’s CCP are both elite clubs, devoid of ideology or democratic processes.’ Discuss.

Issues you might address include:

• Gel'man's analysis of the party of power as an instrument for state control over political life (Vladimir Gel'man, 'Party Politics in Russia: From Competition to Hierarchy,' Europe-Asia Studies, 2008, vol.60, N6, pp.913-930)
• The non-ideological character of United Russia and the continuing relevance of the Maoist heritage for the CCP
• The role of United Russia in a managed political system, and the CCP’s uncontested domination of PRC politics
• Brødsgaard’s account of the CCP’s transformation of the CCP from a mass party to an elite party (Brødsgaard, Kjeld Erik, 'China’s Communist Party: From Mass to Elite Party,' China report (New Delhi), 2018, Vol.54 (4), p.385-402)

3. 'Deng Xiaoping did far more for freedom in China than Boris Yel’tsin in Russia.’ Discuss.

Issues you might address include:

• The economic freedoms brought by Deng Xiaoping’s reforms and the economic collapse in Russia during Yel’tsin’s rule
• Pei’s argument about Deng’s contribution to the ‘neo-Stalinism’ of Xi Jinping (Minxin Pei, 'China: From Tiananmen to Neo-Stalinism,' Journal of Democracy, Volume 31, Number 1, January 2020, pp. 148-157)
• The October 1993 crisis in Russia and Yel’tsin’s ‘super-presidential’ constitution
• The arguments of Leon Aron about Yel’tsin’s achievements https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/was-liberty-really-bad-for-russia/

4. 'In October 1993, Boris Yel’tsin did exactly what Deng Xiaoping did in Tiananmen Square: he defeated dangerous radicals and restored political stability.’ Discuss.

Issues you might address include:

• The differences between the pro-democracy students in Tiananmen Square and the neo-Stalinist and far-right militants in Moscow
• The fact that Yel’tsin called new elections and held a referendum on a new constitution in December 1993
• The economic transformation that followed Deng Xiaoping’s revival of economic reform with his ‘Southern Tour’ (Ezra Vogel, “Chapter 23 Deng’s Finale: The Southern Journey,” in Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).
• The ‘super-presidential’ constitution introduced by Yel’tsin in the aftermath of the 1993 crisis
  • The danger posed by the radical nationalist and neo-Stalinist militants who confronted Yel’tsin in 1993

5. 'China’s ongoing crackdown in Xinjiang is modelled on Putin’s successful subjugation of Chechnya.' Discuss.

Issues you might address include:

• The differences between Russia’s post-conflict strategy in Chechnya and China’s preventive (ie pre-conflict) strategy in Xinjiang (see, eg Darren Byler (2019) ‘Preventative Policing as Community Detention in Northwest China,’ Made in China (July-Sept 2019 and discussed further in his new book Terror Capitalism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2022).
• Russia’s policy of ‘Chechenisation’ (see, eg Jean-François Ratelle & Emil Aslan Souleimanov (2016) A Perfect Counterinsurgency? Making Sense of Moscow’s Policy of Chechenisation,’ Europe-Asia Studies, 68:8, 1287-1314)
• Dannreutheur’s argument that Russia’s strategy has had the unintended consequence of spreading the conflict to other republics of Russia’s northern Caucasus (Dannreuther, R. (2014) ‘Shifting Dynamics of the Insurgency and Counterinsurgency in the North Caucasus’, Ethnopolitics, 13, 4.)
• China’s use of re-education camps in Xinjiang (see, eg, Adrian Zenz, ‘‘Thoroughly reforming them towards a healthy heart attitude’: China’s political re-education campaign in Xinjiang’, Central Asian Survey, vol 38/1 (2019), pp. 102-128.)

6. ‘The resilience of authoritarianism in post-1989 China and post-2000 Russia is a result of successful state-building and good governance.’ Discuss.

Issues you might address include:

• The debate between Joseph Fewsmith and Andrew Nathan over ‘authoritarian resilience’ and ‘institutionalisation’ in China (see, eg Joseph Fewsmith, 'Authoritarian Resilience Revisited: Joseph Fewsmith with Response from Andrew J. Nathan,' The Journal of contemporary China, 2019, Vol.28 (116), p.167-179)
• The institutionalisation of mechanisms for regulating succession in China, and Vladimir Putin’s restoration of the ‘vertical of power’ in Russia
• The removal of term limits for the presidency in China and the 2020 Russian constitutional referendum that potentially extended Putin’s presidency to 2036
• Vladimir Gel’man’s arguments about Russia as an exemplar of poor governance (Vladimir Gel’man (2021) Exceptions and Rules: Success Stories and Bad Governance in Russia, Europe-Asia Studies, 73:6, 1080-1101; and 'The Rise and Fall of Rector Mau,' Ridl, 6 July 2022, https://ridl.io/the-rise-and-fall-of-rector-mau/)

7. 'Just as Russian nationalists unconditionally support the Putin regime, Han nationalists are united behind the CCP.’ Discuss.

Issues you might address include:

• The rise of ‘national democrats’ in Russia (Pal Kolsto, 'Russian Nationalists Flirt with Democracy,' Journal of Democracy, Vol.25, No.3, (2014) pp.120-134)
• The struggles between Russian nationalists over Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014 (Robert Horvath (2015) 'The Euromaidan and the Crisis of Russian Nationalism,' Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, 43(6))
• Xi Jinping’s use of the ‘China Dream’ campaign to mobilise nationalist support for the regime (see, eg., concluding chapter in Bill Hayton, The Invention of China. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020, pp. 240-49.
• The disruptive potential of Han nationalism (see, eg, James Leibold, “More than a Category: Han Racial Nationalism on the Chinese Internet,” The China Quarterly203 (September 2010): 539-559)

8. ‘Lacking a history of colonialism, both Russia and China have a strong claim to be standard-bearers of the struggle against imperialism.’ Discuss.

Issues you might address include

• The statement of the pan-Africanist militant Kemi Seba that Putin ‘doesn't have the blood of slavery and colonisation on his hands’ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/08/the-congolese-student-fighting-with-pro-russia-separatists-in-ukraine
• The support of Western ‘anti-imperialists’ for China’s crackdown in Xinjiang (see eg Gerald Roche, 'Xinjiang Denialists are only aiding imperialism,' The Nation, 6 July 2021, https://www.thenation.com/article/world/china-xinjiang-genocide-denial/)
• The history of Russian imperialism in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and of China’s imperialism in Tibet and Xinjiang (on Xinjiang, see the essays in Part II: Settler colonialism, in Xinjiang Year Zero, eds. Darren Byler, Ivan Franceschini and Nicholas Loubere. Canberra, ANU Press, 2022, pp. 75-172.)
• The increasing intervention of Russia and China in Africa.

9. 'Both the Putin regime and the PRC under Xi Jinping have shown the world how to defeat corruption.’ Discuss.

Issues you might address include:

• The scale of Xi Jinping’s campaign against both ‘tigers’ and ‘flies’, ie high-level and low-level corrupt officials (see, eg, James Leung, Xi's Corruption Crackdown, Foreign Affairs, (May-June 2015), pp.32-38)
• The 2013 conviction of Bo Xilai and the peak of the anti-corruption campaign before the CCP’s 2017 party congress (see, eg. John Garnaut, The Rise and Fall of the House of Bo. London: Penguin Specials, 2012; chapter two in Elizabeth Economy, The Third Revolution: Xi Jinping and the New Chinese State. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018, pp. 20-54).
• The repression of anti-corruption activists in Russia, such as Aleksei Naval’nyi and his Foundation for the Struggle against Corruption
• The Putin regime’s response to the Magnitskii case and the US Magnitskii Act

10. 'In Putin's Russia and Xi Jinping's China, authoritarianism has become a pathway to meritocracy.’ Discuss

Issues you might address include:

• Daniel Bell’s The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy (2018, 2^nd edition available on Latrobe library catalogue)
• Andrew Nathan’s critique of the original edition of Bell’s work (‘Beijing Bull,’ The National Interest, Nov-December 2015) and the symposium on Bell in Perspectives on Politics (‘What Exactly Is “The Chinese Ideal?” A Discussion of Daniel A. Bell’s The China Model: Political Meritocracy and the Limits of Democracy’, March 2016)
• The role of informal connections, patronage, and corruption in Russian and Chinese elite politics, and Minxin Pei’s analysis of the degeneration of the PRC elite (Minxin Pei, 'China: From Tiananmen to Neo-Stalinism,' Journal of Democracy, 31/1, January 2020, pp. 154-5)
• The trade-off between loyalty and official tolerance of corruption (see, eg Osipian, Ararat L, 'Loyalty as rent: corruption and politicization of Russian universities,' International journal of sociology and social policy, 2012, Vol.32 (3/4), p.153-167)

11. A topic that has been approved in an email from your tutor.