NEW COURSE IN ANTHROPOLOGY
Fall term 2011

ANTH V3884x
Capitalism and Authoritaranism
W 11:00-12:50
Enrollment limit 15
Instructor:  Zhanara Nauruzbayeva

This course investigates capitalism developed outside liberal democratic societies. Namely, we will study market capitalism in the societies that are most commonly characterized as authoritarian. In the recent decades, there have been an increasing number of successful market economies such as Singapore or China that flourished within political regimes marked by state intervention, cronyism, and lack of transparency. Authoritarian capitalism appears to provide an ideological alternative to the Western model of capitalism based on liberal democratic governance, as evidenced by the recent embarking of post-Soviet Central Asian countries on this path of development. In this light, our objective is to understand how authoritarian governments enable and promote capitalist economy. At the same time, we keep in sight how capitalist relations promote authoritarian practices. Altogether, this course aims to complicate the expectation that liberal democracy is capitalism’s ideal companion and to develop a nuanced and comprehensive understanding of capitalism in authoritarian societies.