If you wish to complete the course during the academic year 2014 - 2015, contact the teacher no later than March 15, 2015.

This module (54 hours) is online apart from individual teacher-student tutorials for discussion of the submitted thesis extract. The work consists of readings, group analysis tasks and thesis writing work. Students should take the module after their research proposal has been accepted by their programme and they are about to embark upon the writing of their thesis.

This course is an advanced scientific writing seminar in English focusing in various ways on large writing projects in IR, in particular on Master’s Theses. The course is intended primarily for Master’s Students in Russian and European Studies Programme. Others interested in participating can contact Dr. Anni Kangas, anni.kangas@uta.fi.

The course surveys both the history and the contemporary situation of the Russian Orthodox Church and its relation to the Russian State. During the course we discuss the church’s rising political influence and the role of Patriarch Kirill I (Gundiaev) in this process, ROC’s role within the Russian military, and the phenomenon of “political orthodoxy”. We pay special attention to the rise of radical nationalistic orthodox groups, and the ROC’s prosecution of some art exhibition and performances during the last decade.

The course is organized in cooperation with Aleksanteri Institute's Russian and East European Master's School.

The module is offered as part of the CBU autumn school organised at the St. Petersburg State University. For further information, please contact anni.kangas@uta.fi

Only for students in the RES programme.

The course will start in the CBU autumn school in Tampere in 2013 and continue in the spring school in Petrozavodsk, and in the autumn school in St. Petersburg in the autumn semester 2014.

Only for students in the RES programme.

Course outline:

29.10. Classes in History, Harri Melin

5.11. Entrepreneurs in Russia, Jouko Nikula

12.11. Social inequalities in Russia, Mikhail Chernysh

19.11. Class and Culture, Saara Ratilainen

26.11. Classes and Media, Jukka Pietiläinen

03.12. Classes in contemporary Russia, Harri Melin

Situation at the labour market in Russia is still conditioned by character of labour relations formed in the Soviet Union. Transformation of economic-political system in the second half of 1980s led to gradual overcoming of ‘relic’ forms of out-economic compulsion in the labour sphere and forming labour market. Labour market as a global socio-economic system has essentially transformed on the way to the socio-oriented market economy; however, it has not yet measured up the western liberal model of labour relations. Mismatch between formal and informal labour market institutions led to forming ineffective models of behavior from the part of social subjects, fixation of these models and creation of sustainable ineffective establishments.

Content of the course:

1. Introduction to the course. Russian model of labor market: general description.
2. Historical aspects and specificity of the Russian labor market’s development. From administrative-command to the market economy and to the human-oriented labor market.
3. Transitive economy, decentralization of power, transformation of regional labor markets and imbalance in their development.  
4. Institutional modernization of Russian labor markets.  
5. The Employment Policy in Russia.
6. Formal and Informal Employment in Russia.
7. Unemployment.
8. Mobility of work places. Dynamics. Migration.
9. Quality of Employment.

The course materials such as power point presentations, articles and other
materials will be saved on the online learning platform of the course. In the
Moodle it is offered also a discussion forum for all the participants of the
course.

Students from other master's degree programmes are welcome to join the course. 

Compensates RES18.

Draft programme: 

17.3. Introduction

19.3. Functionalism and federalism

24.3. Realism, intergovernmentalism

26.3. Constructivism

31.3. Constructivism, 'hands-on' exercise

9.4. Explaining enlargement

14.4. The EU as a strategic actor

16.4. Inter-organisational relations

21.4. The EU as a normative power

23.4. Explaining disintegration; conclusions

Students of the RES programme can use this course to compensate RES11.

The course addresses Russia’s foreign policy from Gorbachev’s New Thinking until 2014. Students will learn about key events, phenomena, actors, and  different foreign policy schools, and concepts to characterize them. The course will also encourage students to pay attention to interaction between the domestic and foreign policy in the Russian context.

Please enroll in NettiOpsu by 17 March.  A maximum of 50 students will be accepted to the course (on the basis of first come, first served). The first lecture will take place 26 March and the last one 21 May. You cannot take this course unless you are able to come to the last lecture – a conference with your presentations will take place on that particular day (at 14-19).

The course provides an insight into the phenomenon of virtualization of politics. During the course, the student gets acquainted with the interrelation between Post-Soviet political culture and the contemporary virtual world from an interdisciplinary perspective. The students familiarize themselves with the Russian political Internet, Russian social media, the blogosphere, and online memory wars.

The course is organized in cooperation with Aleksanteri Institute's Russian and East European Master's School.