Stalinism to Uncertainty: Investigating Three Decades of Post-Communist Higher Education Development and Change

At more than three decades past the collapse of the socialist system and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, there is certainly a need for reflection on the Communist past, as well as reviewing and analyzing its aftermath, in terms of higher education development and change. Despite the democratization and market economy rhetoric, supported by mantras of university autonomy, it is still unclear where different higher education systems move to. This study is a narrative review and critique that offers an insight into the ways in which scholars reflect on shifts in the unique cultural, social, political, and economic contexts for higher education that emerged and developed in the post-Soviet space. This study offers valuable methodological observations, particularly in contrasting data collection approaches across countries, and critically reflects on the limitations and inconsistencies in empirical approaches, especially with respect to institutional rankings, policy assessments, and the treatment of corruption. There is a sufficient volume of scholarly writings for those who want to learn more about post-Soviet transformation and educational change. These books and articles belong to the past and do not take us to the future, moving us instead from Stalinism to uncertainty. Scholarly works on post-Communist higher education rarely mention corruption, which is the single most serious deficiency of such works. A clear lack of attention to traditional components of academic corruption, such as bribery, extortion, embezzlement, fraud, nepotism, and plagiarism, undermines the completeness of scholarship. The focus on this specific region provides an opportunity to discover the shifts from a centralized and tightly controlled totalitarian system of higher education to some less certain forms of educational organization that vary from country to country. This focus also allows drawing implications for the field of comparative and international education worldwide.