Vitali Silitski (; ; 25 December 1972 – 11 June 2011) was a Belarusian political scientist, analyst, the first director of the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies. He got his PhD in political science from the Rutgers University (New Jersey, U.S.). Silitski is the author of the concepts of preventive authoritarianism and authoritarian international. He was also a civil activist and blogger.
Biography
Vitali Silitski was born in Minsk, BSSR, USSR. His mother is a teacher in a kindergarten; his father and brother are of working specialties.
In 1989–1994 he studied at the Belarusian State University in Minsk at the Department of Economics and Philosophy. He got a diploma with honours in Sociology awarded on June, 1994. Topic of thesis: “The Formation of Political Elite in Belarus”.
In 1993–1994 Vitali studied at the Central European University in Budapest. Was awarded the Master in Politics degree in August, 1994. Topic of thesis: “The Political Aspects of the Privatization Process in Eastern Europe”.
In 1994–1999 he studied at the Rutgers University (New Brunswick, NJ, United States). Was awarded the PhD degree in political science in October 1999. Topic of PhD dissertation: “Constraints and Coalitions: Politics of Economic Reform in Central and Eastern Europe after Return of the Left”. Supervisor: PhD Robert R. Kaufman.
In 1999–2003 Vitali worked as associate professor at Department of Economics in the European Humanities University (EHU) in Minsk (on leave March–August 1999 and October 2001-April 2002). He was forced to quit by administration for publicly criticising the government of Alexander Lukashenko.
While working at EHU, Vitali has designed and taught courses "The Political Economy of Policy Reform in Eastern Europe and Latin America", Introduction to International Political Economy", "International Political Economy of Industrialization in East Asia", "Economic Policy", “The Political Economy of European Integration”, “From Totalitarianism to Civil Society: Social and Political Transformation of East Central Europe” to undergraduate and graduate students.
In October 2004-July 2005 Vitali was awarded a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellowship at the International Forum for Democratic Studies in the National Endowment for Democracy at Washington D.C., United States.
In February 2006-February 2007 he got visiting scholarship at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University (sponsored by Stanford and Scholars Rescue Fund, Institute for International Education).
As an independent expert Vitali participated in research of the non-governmental organisation Freedom House, and cooperated with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and international consulting company Oxford Analytica.
In 2007–2011 Vitali Silitski worked as the director of the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, the analytic center created in October 2006 by a group of famous public figures and intellectuals and registered in Lithuania. The Institute develops and offers positive alternative scenarios of political, economic, and social transformation of the country, and lays out ways to enhance the competitiveness of Belarus and the welfare of Belarusian citizens.
When Silitski discovered he had kidney cancer in July 2010, his friends and colleagues supported him. The surgical removal of a kidney, made in Belarus, did not help and an international fundraising campaign was organized. Silitski had spent much time in a hospital in Belgium, but the cancer was progressing and he returned to Belarus, where he spent his last days with his friends and family. “I am dying. But make everything to keep alive the ideas I lived for”, said Silitski to his friends.
Silitski died on 11 June 2011, at the age of 38, after living with cancer for nearly a year.
Main concepts
Preventive (preempting) authoritarianism: type of authoritarianism under which preservation of power is achieved via preempting (preventing) attacks (in opposite to reactive answers under manipulative authoritarianism) against potential threats (political opponents, uncontrolled mass media, civil society, human rights defenders, non-governmental organisations, etc.), and also via violations of election legislation even in a situation of definite advantages and possibility to win fairly.