Alec Rasizade () is a prominent Soviet and American professor of history and political science, who specialized in Sovietology, primarily known for the typological model (or "

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...

" in his own words), which describes the impact of a drop in oil revenues on the process of decline in

rentier state In current political-science and international-relations theory, a rentier state ( or ) is a state which derives all or a substantial portion of its national revenues from the economic rent paid by foreign individuals, concerns or governments. ...

s by stages and cycles of their general socio-economic degradation upon the end of an

oil boom An oil boom is a period of large inflow of income as a result of high global oil prices or large oil production in an economy. Generally, this short period initially brings economic benefits, in terms of increased GDP growth, but might later lead ...

. He has also authored more than 200 studies on the history of 20th century,

Perestroika ''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...

reforms and breakup of the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, oil diplomacy and contemporary politics in the

post-Soviet states The post-Soviet states, also referred to as the former Soviet Union or the former Soviet republics, are the independent sovereign states that emerged/re-emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Prior to their independence, they ...

and autonomies of Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus.

Education and scholarship

Alec Rasizade was born in the city of Nakhchivan,

Azerbaijan SSR The Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, also referred to as the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, Azerbaijan SSR, Azerbaijani SSR, AzSSR, Soviet Azerbaijan or simply Azerbaijan, was one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union be ...

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, in 1947 and graduated from the history department of

Azerbaijan State University Baku State University (BSU) (BDU; ) is a public university located in Baku, Azerbaijan. Established on 1 September 1919 by the Parliament of Azerbaijan Democratic Republic, the university started with faculties of history and philology, physics a ...

in 1969, then graduated and received a

PhD degree A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in history from

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

in 1974 (with a thesis on the

Truman Doctrine The Truman Doctrine is a Foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy that pledges American support for democratic nations against Authoritarianism, authoritarian threats. The doctrine originated with the primary goal of countering ...

), and the Doctor of History degree from the

USSR Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (u ...

in 1990 (for dissertation on Turkey in the system of NATO). He subsequently worked as a professor of European and American history at

from 1974 to 1980, and a senior research fellow at

Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS) (, located in Baku, is the main state research organization and the primary body that conducts research and coordinates activities in the fields of science and social sciences in Azerbaijan. It was ...

from 1981 to 1990. Upon the demise of the USSR in 1991, Rasizade emigrated to the United States as a visiting professor of history at the

University of South Florida The University of South Florida (USF) is a Public university, public research university with its main campus located in Tampa, Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States, and other campuses in St. Petersburg, Florida, St. Petersburg and Sarasota, ...

in Tampa. Furthermore, as a Fulbright professor, he taught Soviet history in the 1990s at

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California *George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer to ...

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

SAIS Sais (, ) was an ancient Egyptian city in the Western Nile Delta on the Canopic branch of the Nile,Mish, Frederick C., Editor in Chief. "Saïs." '' Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary''. 9th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc., 19 ...

Monmouth Monmouth ( or ; ) is a market town and community (Wales), community in Monmouthshire, Wales, situated on where the River Monnow joins the River Wye, from the Wales–England border. The population in the 2011 census was 10,508, rising from 8 ...

and other universities. After obtaining in 1995 a

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...

in history from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

(based on the scope of his lectures and publications), he worked at its

Harriman Institute The Harriman Institute, the first academic center in the United States devoted to the interdisciplinary study of Russia and the Soviet Union, was founded at Columbia University in 1946, with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, as the Russi ...

. In 2000, Rasizade was invited to Washington to work at the

Center for Strategic and International Studies The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is an American think tank based in Washington, D.C. From its founding in 1962 until 1987, it was an affiliate of Georgetown University, initially named the Center for Strategic and Inte ...

, whereupon in 2004 he moved to the newly established Historical Research Center of the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

, where wrote his most significant works until retiring upon its closure in 2013. Professor Rasizade occasionally participates in academic, educational, social, analytical and legislative events, discussions, panels, peer reviews, interviews, broadcasts and hearings as an expert in post-Soviet affairs. He is also an advisory or editorial board member in a number of the world's leading academic journals in his field of regional studies and an

emeritus professor ''Emeritus/Emerita'' () is an honorary title granted to someone who retires from a position of distinction, most commonly an academic faculty position, but is allowed to continue using the previous title, as in "professor emeritus". In some c ...

of Baku State University.

Significant studies

Rasizade's academic contribution to Sovietology may be divided into four general categories: Caspian oil boom, Russia, Azerbaijan and Central Asia. His ideas and conclusions for each of these major studies are summarized in the following theses: 1) Having an insider knowledge of Caspian oil reserves, Rasizade precisely calculated and predicted in his writings the exact end of the second Baku oil boom of 2005–2014, notwithstanding the geopolitical euphoria of the 1990s in Western capitals based on exaggerated estimates by American academia, Azerbaijan's government and the Caspian oil consortium. 2) On Russia, he wrote that Putin's

Bonapartism Bonapartism () is the political ideology supervening from Napoleon Bonaparte and his followers and successors. The term was used in the narrow sense to refer to people who hoped to restore the House of Bonaparte and its style of government. In ...

was a natural result of the 1990s turmoil, when the society as a whole and the

nouveau riche ; ), new rich, or new money (in contrast to old money; ) is a social class of the rich whose wealth has been acquired within their own generation, rather than by familial inheritance. These people previously had belonged to a lower social cla ...

s in particular, longed for a strongman who could establish order, stability and legitimacy for the illegally acquired wealth even at the expense of civil rights restriction. Furthermore, Rasizade argues that demise of the USSR was only the first stage in the process of Russian Federation's own breakup or, as he put it bluntly, Russia is doomed to disintegrate as did all multinational empires in history. 3) Azerbaijan, in his view, is a classic Middle Eastern petrostate, which will eventually sink into its legitimate place among the impoverished

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

nations with the end of oil boom, as is predetermined by its culture,

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

corruption and lack of industrial endowment. He insists that the oil boom was just an aberration on Azerbaijan's natural path from

communism Communism () is a political sociology, sociopolitical, political philosophy, philosophical, and economic ideology, economic ideology within the history of socialism, socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a ...

to the

Third world The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

. 4) As for Central Asia, the main argument in his publications has been the futility of Western efforts to impose there the democratic values of European civilization, since democracy in Muslim nations inevitably leads to election and entrenchment of

Islamofascism Islamofascism is a portmanteau of the words ''fascism'' and ''Islamism'' or ''Islamic fundamentalism'', which advocate authoritarianism and violent extremism to establish an Islamic state, in addition to promoting offensive Jihad. For example, ...

, as was proven by American intervention in other Islamic countries. Instead of direct involvement, he recommended to US government a support for local tyrants who were able to maintain peace in the region and order in their countries by the brutally effective methods of the same

Islam Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

Rasizade's algorithm

The most outstanding work of Alec Rasizade, which gained an international acclaim, was the eponymous algorithm of decline theory, described in his 2008 article at the peak of oil prices, when nothing foreshadowed their steep fall and the subsequent onset of global economic recession with irreversible consequences for oil-exporting nations. Prior to that, the effect of rising oil prices, rendered to strengthen the national currencies and affect the economies of

s as a result of

, was described only by the "

Dutch disease In economics, Dutch disease is the apparent causal relationship between the increase in the economic development of a specific sector (for example natural resources) and a decline in other sectors (like the manufacturing sector or agriculture) ...

" theory, first introduced in 1977. However, that theory could not foretell the further course of developments after a drop in oil prices on the world market: what would have turned out for oil-dependent countries upon the end of their oil booms? And precisely that happened in 2008, when the price of oil collapsed from $147 per barrel in the middle of the year to $32 by its end, i.e. by 75 percent. Exactly at that moment came out of press the aforementioned article, in which Rasizade explained the

chain reaction A chain reaction is a sequence of reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place. In a chain reaction, positive feedback leads to a self-amplifying chain of events. Chain reactions are one way that sys ...

of an unavoidable sequence of events in the process of impoverishment, degradation and decline in living standards of nations whose welfare depends on the export of natural resources, when one change inevitably entails another. Appearance of the article was so timely that the described algorithm, which was unfolding in real time, had been picked up in scholarly literature as a typological model by the name of its author. Rasizade's algorithm may be described succinctly as the following

(

domino effect A domino effect is the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a series of similar or related events, a form of chain reaction. The term is an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically refers to a linked sequence of events ...

): a decline in oil production or a drop in the price of oil translates into a synchronous fall in the inflow of petrodollars, which results in the collapse of treasury's revenues and expenditures, which leads to devaluation of the local currency, which ensues (in a free market) a tumble in prices of goods, services and real estate in dollar terms, which squeezes the tax base, which entails the redundancy of government bureaucracy, nationwide layoffs and bankruptcies in the private sector, which further squeezes the tax base, which results in cutting wages and social benefits, which causes mass unemployment and impoverishment of the populace, which triggers a growing dissatisfaction of power elite, which brings about a

regime change Regime change is the partly forcible or coercive replacement of one government regime with another. Regime change may replace all or part of the state's most critical leadership system, administrative apparatus, or bureaucracy. Regime change may ...

with

redistribution of wealth Redistribution of income and wealth is the transfer of income and wealth (including physical property) from some individuals to others through a social mechanism such as taxation, welfare, public services, land reform, monetary policies, con ...

and

property Property is a system of rights that gives people legal control of valuable things, and also refers to the valuable things themselves. Depending on the nature of the property, an owner of property may have the right to consume, alter, share, re ...

. After this, the whole cycle repeats itself on a lower level of revenues and living standards until the final slump of such country into its historically legitimate and economically stable place among the

Third World The term Third World arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, the Southern Cone, NATO, Western European countries and oth ...

nations. This is the final stage of algorithm, after which an industrial development may (or may not, as the experience of backward countries shows) begin in a given state — such a prediction does not lend itself to political or economic calculations and depends on the mentality and traditions of each particular nation. Therefore, after adjusting to the new standards of living, these nations can exist in the condition of

entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, most commonly associated with states of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodynamics, where it was first recognized, to the micros ...

indefinitely.For the full description of this theory, see
Algorithm of Rasizade (basic principles). = The Russian Question, 15.VII.2022.
/ref>

References

Notable publications

(The full list of published academic works, studies, lectures, articles and essays of A.Rasizade is presented in the Azerbaijani Wikipedia).
Putin’s mission in the Russian Thermidor. = Welt Trends: Zeitschrift für internationale Politik (Potsdam), May-June 2008, number 60, pages 53–60.

Na Afghanistan het nieuwe Grote Spel in Centraal-Azië (translated into Dutch by G.J.Telkamp). = Internationale Spectator (The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations), October 2002, volume 56, number 10, pages 494-500.

Dictators, Islamists, big powers and ordinary people: the new ‘great game’ in Central Asia. = Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft (Bonn: F.Ebert Stiftung), July 2002, number 3, pages 90-106.

A propos of the Georgian war: reflections on Russia's revanchism in its near abroad. = Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies (London: Taylor & Francis), March 2009, volume 11, number 1, pages 9-27.

* ttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1057%2Fip.2008.24 Putin’s place in Russian history. = International Politics (London: Palgrave-Macmillan), September 2008, volume 45, number 5, pages 531-553.
Entering the old ‘great game’ in Central Asia. = Orbis (Philadelphia: Pergamon Press for Foreign Policy Research Institute), Winter 2003, volume 47, number 1, pages 41-58.

Putin’s mission in the Russian Thermidor. = Communist and Post-Communist Studies (Amsterdam: Elsevier publishers for the University of California), March 2008, volume 41, number 1, pages 1-25.

* [http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0263493032000053181 Azerbaijan after a decade of independence: less oil, more graft and poverty. = Central Asian Survey (London: Taylor & Francis), December 2002, volume 21, number 4, pages 349-370.]
The mythology of munificent Caspian bonanza and its concomitant pipeline geopolitics. = Central Asian Survey (London: Taylor & Francis), March 2002, volume 21, number 1, pages 37-54.

Azerbaijan in transition to the new age of democracy. = Communist and Post-Communist Studies (Los Angeles), September 2003, volume 36, number 3, pages 345—372.

Azerbaijan's prospects in Nagorno-Karabakh. = Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies (London: Taylor & Francis), June 2011, volume 13, number 2, pages 215-231.

Azerbaijan after Heydar Aliev. = Nationalities Papers (London: Taylor & Francis), March 2004, volume 32, number 1, pages 137-164.

Azerbaijan's prospects in Nagorno-Karabakh with the end of oil boom. = Iran and the Caucasus (Leiden: Brill), 2011 double issue, volume 15, numbers 1-2, pages 299-317.

The great game of Caspian energy: ambitions and the reality. = Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans (London: Taylor & Francis), April 2005, volume 7, number 1, pages 1-17.

Azerbaijan's prospects in Nagorno-Karabakh. = Mediterranean Quarterly (Duke University Press), Summer 2011, volume 22, number 3, pages 72-94.

Mythology of the munificent Caspian bonanza and its concomitant pipeline geopolitics. = Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East (Duke University Press), 2000 double issue, volume 20, numbers 1-2, pages 138–152.

Türkiye açısından Truman Doktrini ve Stalin diplomasisinin hataları (translated into Turkish by M.Ahmedov). = Belleten (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu), April 1991, volume 55, number 212, pages 239-255.

The new ‘great game’ in Central Asia after Afghanistan. = Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations (Istanbul), Summer 2002, volume 1, number 2, pages 125–134.

Book review: Let Our Fame be Great, by Oliver Bullough (London: Penguin Books, 2011, 512 pages). = Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe (London: Taylor & Francis), December 2011, volume 19, issue 3, pages 689-692.

External links

Worldcat author catalogue listing: Alec Rasizade.

Google Scholar cross reference citation of his works.

A collection of his publications and citations at Research Gate.

Works of A.Rasizade published by Taylor & Francis (London).

Academic studies by A.Rasizade published in JSTOR journals.

A selection of his most popular articles from the Free Library archive.

Works of A.Rasizade published by Duke University Press.

Alec Rasizade's publications mentioned in Google Books.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rasizade, Alec 20th-century American historians 20th-century American male writers Historians of Russia Historians of communism Historians of the Caucasus American political scientists Russian studies scholars Historians of Central Asia International relations scholars Baku State University alumni Moscow State University alumni Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni Soviet emigrants to the United States American people of Azerbaijani descent Academic staff of Baku State University Azerbaijani political scientists People from the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic 1947 births Living people American male non-fiction writers