The Institute for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies presents: |
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Russia, Ukraine, and our World of Competing Visions |
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Can Civil Society Counter Oligarchic Capitalism? |
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Tuesday, April 25, 2023
11:00 am - 12:30 pm
Hybrid
Voesar Conference Room, Suite 412
Elliott School of International Affairs
1957 E St. NW | Washington, D.C. 20052
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought to light two different societal paths: oligarchic capitalism and civil society. What do these rival views of civilization portend, not only for Ukrainian and Russian society, but for all of us?
Dr. Janine R. Wedel, a social anthropologist who has studied Ukraine and Russia since the early 1990s (after spending much of the 1980s in communist Poland), traces the rise of oligarchic capitalism in Russia and Ukraine over the past 30+ years, its persistence in Russia, and its insidious spread to the United States and other liberal democracies. She contrasts this with Ukraine’s civil society which has developed over the same period and served as a counterweight to corruption and oligarchic influence.
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Dr. Janine R. Wedel is an anthropologist, public intellectual, and University Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. She also serves as a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Futures Studies in Stockholm and as a Fellow at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. Wedel writes about elites, corruption, governance, accountability, and informal social networks and institutions—with a focus on eastern Europe and the United States. Her single-authored books include the award-winning Shadow Elite (2009) and Unaccountable: How the Establishment Corrupted Our Finances, Freedom, and Politics and Created an Outsider Class (paperback & kindle editions, 2016). A five-time Fulbright fellow, including research/teaching in Poland and most recently in Ukraine in 2015-2016, she is also a winner of the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, as well as major awards from the National Science Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, New America Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Institute for New Economic Thinking. She has published op-eds in the Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Europe, and USA Today, among many other outlets.
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Dr. Henry Hale is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, Director of the Petrach Program on Ukraine, and Co-Director of the Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia). He has spent extensive time conducting field research in post-Soviet Eurasia. His work has won two prizes from the American Political Science Association and he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for his research in Russia in 2007-2008. He is chair of the editorial board of Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization.
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This event is on record and open to the media. |
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The Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES)
Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University
1957 E Street, NW / Suite 412 / Washington, DC 20052
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