Politics in Eurasian States. The course aims to give proper tools to understand the domestic political processes of those states born after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (with the exception of Russia and Baltic countries – the latter EU members). Political processes will be studied according to (i) the state formation, and (ii) the birth of the nation. The course will analyze institutional aspects (institutional framework, political parties, elections, etc.), history of the state, religious heritage, political culture and social and political informal institution.
The main topics will be:
- General attitudes towards the Sovereign state-building in Euro-Asiatic countries and related analytical approaches;
- The authoritarian stability phenomenon of Belarus;
- The issue of regionalism in the national state-building process of Ukraine;
- Social and political fractures and pluralism in Moldova;
- Regime change in Georgia and Armenia;
- Oil issue in Azerbaijan’s political development;
- No-patrimonial regimes in Central Asia countries;
- “Colored revolutions” and formal institutions in the Republic of Kirghizia;
- “De facto states” in the post-Soviet area

Politics in Russia. After a short analysis of the pre 1991 history, the course will deal with politics and government through concepts and ideas of compared politics and political economy. Students will gain deepened knowledge of the formal structure of Russian political system, of its institutions and relative functions, together with the internal processes of the Russian system, including political recruitment, socialization, formation and realization of policies.
The course will deal with the following topics:
• History of transformations of XX century, rise and fall of communisms, collapse of USSR, soviet and post-soviet reformations;
• Political system of contemporary Russia, institutions, semi-presidentialism;
• Political parties, elections, ideologies;
• Federalism, Ethnicities and conflicts;
• Voters, public opinion, civil society;
• Economic reformations, oligarchies, “curse of the resources”;
• Political leadership;
• Domestic policy;
• Foreign policy.

The EU, the Council of Europe and Russia. The course will focus on the analysis of the Russian-EU relations through the study of history, of the current situation and of the future perspectives of development. The course will analyze the political and juridical foundations of the Russia-EU partnership, the Russia-EU cooperation in multiple fields, and the bilateral cooperation with the individual EU member states. Furthermore, it will be analyzed the European behavior towards Russian foreign policy and Russian behavior towards EU foreign policy.
The second part of the course will deal with the Russian presence in the Council of Europe, the relations between Moscow and the Council, and the Russian participation to the Council of Europe institutions.
The topics of the course will be:
• History of Russia-EU relations;
• Political foundations of those relations;
• Russian presence in the Council of Europe;
• The role of the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe;
• Local and regional powers congress;
• Treaties of the Council of Europe ratified by Russia;
• ECHR