Dr Vesselin Dimitrov

This course is available on the MSc in Comparative Politics, MSc in Conflict Studies, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe, MSc in Culture and Conflict in a Global Europe (LSE & Sciences Po), MSc in European Studies (Research), MSc in European and International Public Policy, MSc in European and International Public Policy (LSE and Bocconi) and MSc in European and International Public Policy (LSE and Sciences Po). This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access) and demand is typically very high. Priority is given to students on the listed programmes and students on other programmes may not get a place.

The course explores the problems of delayed modernisation, problematic democratisation, conflictual nation-building and geopolitical insecurity in the European semi-periphery, including countries such as Russia, Poland, Spain, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Sweden. It analyses the socio-economic structures, political issues and problems shared by the European semi-periphery from the first wave of liberal globalisation and the emergence of mass politics in the late 19th century to European integration in the early 21st century. It analyses the strategies adopted by political elites and social classes in the face of modernisation, imperial decline, nationalism, and European integration.

Course topics include: The emergence of core and semi-periphery in Europe; Problems of economic modernisation; Political parties and ideologies; State nationalism, sub-state nationalism and problems of nation-state building; Religion: the socio-political power of the church; Ruling elites and structures of power; Fascism and varieties of right-wing authoritarianism in the 1920s and 1930s; Communism; Empire and EU integration.

This course is delivered through a combination of seminars and lectures totalling a minimum of 32 hours in the Lent Term and Summer Term.

There will be a reading week in Week 6 of the LT for private study and assessment preparation.

Students are required to submit one formative essay of 2000 words in the Lent Term.

K Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston, 2001); M Mann, The Sources of Social Power: Vol. 2, The Rise of Classes and Nation States, 1760-1914, Vol. 3, Global Empires and Revolution, 1890-1945, and Vol. 4, Globalizations, 1945-2011 (Cambridge, 2012-13); B Moore, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston, 1967); E Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848-1875 (London, 1975), The Age of Empire, 1875-1914 (London, 1989), Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century, 1914-1991 (London, 1994), and Nations and Nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge, 1992); D Lieven, Empire (London, 2000); N Stone, Europe Transformed 1878-1919 (Oxford, 1999); J Zielonka, Europe as Empire: The Nature of the Enlarged European Union (Oxford, 2007).

Essay (25%, 2500 words) and online assessment (75%) in the ST.

Online assessment duration: 7 days in the ST.