Контуры глобальных трансформаций: политика, экономика, право (Apr 2022)
Country Studies of Central and Eastern Europe: How to Get Out of the Dive?
Abstract
The current stage of development of studies of Central and Eastern Europe is characterized by a number of specific and common problems for the whole scientific direction. Systemic transformation in the states of the region at the turn of the 1980s-1990s led to a decrease in the level of their foreign economic and foreign policy relations with Russia, which influenced the interest in the study and accumulation of knowledge about Central and Eastern Europe in our country. In particular, the demand of state bodies for regular country studies of the region decreased, which affected the publication activity of scientific centers and the training of new scientists by specialized university departments. Central-Eastern Europe ceased to be considered as a separate region as its thirteen states were involved in European integration processes, and the number of scientific institutions and research teams for its study decreased. The disunity of specialists dealing with Eastern European problems and the low level of their scientific interaction leads to the formation of an "archipelago" of research centers. On the basis of open data, we found nine, oft en small, scientific teams for the study of history (from the middle of the 20th century), economy, society, domestic and foreign policy of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and analyze the results of their activities in 2010-21 (including topics and territorial scope of works). It is worth to note that in the Russian regions, the corresponding research within the framework of research teams is not carried out, they have survived only in Moscow. Such a key characteristic of country studies as complexity is gone – in the conditions of methodological stagnation and in the absence of the possibility of conducting comprehensive country studies, scientists tackle its components separately, and some of them have been abandoned. The predominance of the reductionist approach over the holistic one also applies to geographical coverage: our analysis of the specialization of scientists shows that many countries in the region remain outside the research field, and interest in two or three of them is due to cultural and historical ties and foreign policy agenda. The training of researchers and teachers at the departments of universities is carried out in an insufficient level for personnel renewal, the age of twothirds of the specialists is over 40 years old. In order to assess the prospects for solving this problem, we analyzed the topics of dissertations defended over ten years in 24 Russian universities and academic institutes in history, politics, economics and economic geography of the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.
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