Twenty years ago, on Nov. 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down, signaling the imminent collapse of communist rule throughout Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union. UCLA faculty members with expertise on the subject are available to the media, and several will participate in a Nov. 6 UCLA symposium on the political, economic and sociocultural impact of the fall of communism two decades later. The symposium is sponsored by the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations and the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies.

Gail Kligman, professor of sociology and director of the UCLA Center for Eastern and Eurasian Studies, specializes in socialism and post-socialism, Eastern Europe, political and cultural sociology, gender, and ethnography.

 

Ivan Berend, professor of history, has published numerous books and scholarly articles on modern European economic history and the complex history of Central and Eastern Europe.

[Video: Berend on Central and Eastern Europe since 1989]

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Adrian Favell, professor of sociology, focuses on internal European migration and recently published a number of works on the impact of new East–West migrations in Europe since the European Union enlargements in 2004 and 2007.

 

Dan Treisman, professor of political science, studies Russian politics, the political economy of development, democratic transitions and political corruption.

 

Ron Rogowski, professor of political science, specializes in comparative politics and political economy and is an expert on Germany.