Sovietology, post-Sovietology, and the Study of Postcommunist Democratization
Author(s)
Hanson, Stephen E.
Abstract
The progress of democracy in the postcommunist region over the first decade since the Soviet collapse presents a more mixed picture than originally anticipated by either pessimistic sociological or optimistic institutional analysts. In this short essay, I will argue that further progress toward a comprehensive theory of postcommunist democratization requires us to return to a more detailed analysis of institutional and social developments during the communist period itself. Unfortunately, due to the discrediting of the subfield of “Sovietology,” the study of Leninist political and Stalinist socioeconomic institutions has been almost completely neglected in the political science profession since the early 1990s. In what follows, I first review the reasons for the marginalization of Soviet (and post-Soviet) studies within mainstream political science. I then argue that the recent resurgence of interest in the “comparative-historical approach” within the comparative politics field may allow us to return, from a new theoretical perspective, to earlier debates about the functioning of communist institutions. In gaining a more nuanced understanding of the nature of communism, we may simultaneously shed analytical light on the surprising results of postcommunist democratization outlined above.
