Endowed Chair Speaker Series

Abstract:

Western private donors and governmental aid agencies have provided millions of dollars to promote the development of civil society in the former communist countries, and elsewhere in the world, on the assumption that a strong civil society will help build democracy. But can foreign assistance really contribute to the development of civil society? Is the concept even useful when discussing politics in Central Asian societies? This talk will focus on these and other questions, with specific reference to Kazakhstan.

Autobiography:

Charles E. Ziegler is Professor and University Scholar in the Political Science Department at the University of Louisville. He is founder and Director of the Institute for Democracy and Development, and founder and administrator of the Center for Asian Democracy. A specialist on Russia and Eurasia, Ziegler is co-editor (with Judith Thornton) of The Russian Far East: A Region at Risk (University of Washington Press, 2002), and author of The History of Russia (Greenwood Press, 1999), Foreign Policy and East Asia (Cambridge University Press, 1993), and Environmental Policy in the USSR (University of Massachusetts Press, 1987). In addition, he has written over fifty book chapters and articles for such professional journals as Comparative Politics, Political Science Quarterly, British Journal of Political Science, Problems of Post-Communism, International Politics, and Pacific Review. Ziegler has held an International Research and Exchanges Board Advanced Individual Research Opportunity grant, a Senior Fulbright Fellowship to Korea, an International Affairs Fellowship of the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Hoover Institution National Fellowship.  Ziegler received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois.