Michael Burawoy

Michael Burawoy, professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, will write a book placing Russia's post-Communist transition to a free-market economy in the context of other market transitions in places such as China and Central Europe. Burawoy will argue that Russia's cultural aversion to capitalist development should not be regarded as an anomaly but rather incorporated as a comparative case. Drawing on a decade of field work in Russia, he will develop a comparative framework that recognizes the uniqueness of the Russian transition, while relating it for the first time to other market transitions. In addition to expanding the scope of market transition theory to include Russia, Burawoy's study will examine the diversity of post-Soviet Russia itself, Russia's trajectory within that period, and the lived experience of the transition among different classes.