Episode 38: Post-Socialist Mortality Crisis with Gabor Scheiring

Reimagining Soviet Georgia

The collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union unleashed an unprecedented mortality crisis. In the years following, the region endured upwards of 7.5 million excess (and thus preventable) deaths. This post-socialist mortality crisis was not only the result of the economic devastation and social fracturing caused by socialism's end, but was exacerbated by the political-economic commitment to market orthodoxy and austerity of post-socialist elites, leading to wide spread socio-economic, physical and mental immiseration.

On today's episode we welcome Gábor Scheiring to discuss how this post-socialist mortality crisis emerged, its political implications for today, and what types of methodologies are most effective for researching these topics and more in post-socialist countries.

Gabor is an Assistant Professor of Comparative Politics at Georgetown University Qatar, currently on sabbatical as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University, Center for European Studies. His research addresses the lived experience and political economy of contemporary capitalist transformations using quantitative, qualitative, and comparative methods. His work analyzes how economic shocks fuel precarity, leading to mental and physical suffering, and how these processes affect the stability of democracy. As a member of the Hungarian Parliament (2010-2014), he advocated for a socially just transition to sustainability.

Gabor's website:

https://www.gaborscheiring.com/