Public lecture

Dr. Victor Krasilshchikov, Senior researcher at the Centre for Development Studies, Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) will give a public lecture entitled

 Modernisation, Authoritarianism and Democracy: The Enigmatic Triangle?
(download .pdf)

on October 28, 2015, 10:15–12:00, at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Education, Lossi 36, room 215.

Today, the prospects of democracy in the world look increasingly unclear, as authoritarian tendencies are increasingly evident in most regions of the world. The lecture will offer an overview of the following types of authoritarian regimes: 1) traditional authoritarianism; 2) neo-traditional authoritarian regimes; 3) developmental authoritarian regimes that carry out accelerated economic modernisations; 4) “post-neo-traditional” authoritarianisms, which have arisen in the globalisation era. Among all these types of the authoritarian regimes only the third one, developmental authoritarianism, has potential to transform into democracy. The “post-neo-traditional” type can be categorised as a “spoilt child” of the neoliberal globalisation and a by-product of the successful modernisation in China and some other countries of East Asia, as well as a result of disintegration of statist systems. Reviewing a number of cases, the lecture will assess the prospects of democratisation as a function of the type of authoritarianism.

Victor Krasilshchikov graduated from the Faculty of Economics of the Moscow State University, and received his PhD (1982) habilitation (2002) in economics. He is the head of a research group at the Centre for Development Studies, a subunit of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Dr Krasilshchikov is also convener of the working group “Transformations in the World System – Comparative Studies of Development” of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (www.eadi.org).