The Central Asian Origins of Post-Socialist Economic Reforms

How did Central Asian states approach the transition from state socialism? Why did they embrace some reforms and not others? This talk will argue that making sense of these questions requires examining the role of the social scientists working within and outside government in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as their interactions with international organizations like the World Bank and the IMF. Tracing their positions on questions such as utility pricing, social welfare, and labor, the talk will show how archival research, combined with other methods, can shed new light on this contentious period.

This talk is one of the keynote lectures at the Davis Center's Graduate Student Conference on Central Asia.

Event Speakers

Artemy Kalinovsky: Professor of Russian, Soviet, and post-Soviet Studies, Temple University

Host or Publisher Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies