Two Decades without the Soviet Union: Transformations in Eurasian Space

10^th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Association for Communist and Post-Communist Studies (AACaPS – X)

On February 3-4, 2011, the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia) hosted the 10th Biennial Conference of the Australasian Association for Communist and Post-Communist Studies (AACaPS – X), which was convened by the Centre’s Deputy Director, Dr Kirill Nourzhanov.
 
The Conference’s theme was ‘Two Decades without the Soviet Union: Transformations in Eurasian Space’, and it brought together academics, journalists and policy makers from twelve countries.

The collapse of the USSR in 1991 ushered in a period of unprecedented change across the Eurasian continent affecting lives of hundreds of millions of people, redrawing political maps, and generating new challenges and opportunities for the rest of the world.

AACaPS - X brought together distinguished scholars, policymakers and journalists from Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe and North America who took stock of various aspects of political, strategic, economic and cultural transformation from the Danube to the Pacific in the past two decades.

The Conference was launched by the CAIS Director, Prof Amin Saikal. The keynote address was delivered by the Hon. Bob Hawke, former Prime Minister of Australia, who provided a personal and richly-textured account of the events surrounding the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s turn towards capitalism, in which he took an active part. Mr Hawke also provided an analysis of the current geopolitical situation in the Eurasian super-continent, paying special attention to the challenges of Islamic radicalism and the dangers inherent in failing states in Central and South Asia.

The Conference’s 52 papers covered a broad spectrum of topics related to the politics, international relations, economics, history and culture in Eurasia. The geographic scope of discussions encompassed the Balkans, Central Europe, the former Soviet republics, and North-East Asia. The studies addressing the trajectories of change in Russia and Central Asia were particularly well represented, highlighting the growing importance of these areas in academic and political discourse.

Peer-reviewed and edited proceedings of the Conference are available in digital form: Proceedings