State and Society in East Asia

2019/2020

Учебный год

ENG

Обучение ведется на английском языке

4

Кредиты

Кто читает:

Департамент зарубежного регионоведения

Статус:

Курс обязательный

Когда читается:

2-й курс, 1, 2 модуль

Course Syllabus

Abstract

This is a required course for the Politics and Economics in Asia, the HSE-KIC dual degree program students. This course examines contemporary social and political developments in East Asia. Throughout the course, we will analyze the behavior of state and non-state institutions and actors, and the subsequent effects on the constituents they serve. How do nation-states form, and how are they held together? What is development? What would be the optimal way to design institutions in a democracy? How do authoritarian regimes survive? How can political institutions and policies shift deeply held cultural attitudes in society? How do race and ethnicity affect political attitudes and social mobilization? We will explore these and related questions drawing on the cases of China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. The overall goal of the course is to ascertain the impact, effect, and significance of the different stakeholders – domestic and external – that have shaped East Asia’s development in the 21st century and consider the potential for greater socio-political reforms in the future.

Learning Objectives

• Through the course, students are expected to acknowledge the importance of the historical origins and the developmental paths of state-society relationship in understanding the unique aspects of each government’s policies as well as of people’s political behaviors.

Expected Learning Outcomes

• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with the concepts of state capacity, the state–society relationship, characteristics of modern states, bureaucracy, impersonality, sovereignty and functions of states in East Asia
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with the concepts of colonialism and its different types, imperialism, othering, orientalism, dependency theory
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with the concepts of human development, sustainability, democracy and democratic regimes, regime change and democratization and social capital in East Asia
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with the concepts of Benedict Anderson’s “imagined communities”, types of nationalism, civic and ethnic nationalism
• Upon successful completion of this workshop students are expected to be familiar with the following concepts: types of questions in comparative politics, empirical arguments vs. normative arguments, conceptualization & operationalization, cases and case studies, variables and comparison, most-similar-systems design & most-different-systems design, hypotheses, types of evidence, correlation & causation, deviant cases
• Upon successful completion of this week students must be familiar with the concepts of authoritarianism and authoritarian regimes, totalitarian regimes, “Iron law of oligarchy”
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with the concept of civic culture and civil society in East Asia
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with the concepts of democracy and democratic regimes, procedural (minimal) & substantive definitions of democracy, regime change and democratization, representative vs. direct democracy.
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with the concepts of globalization, international institutions and integration, immigration, transnational networks and “comparative advantage”.
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with the types of democratization, democratic transitions and democratic consolidation.
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with the concepts of national identity, self-determination, sovereignty
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with the concepts of development / different approaches to development, modernization theory, dependency theory, neoliberal approach to development, post-colonial perspective on development
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with political parties, the concepts of groups of interest, party systems, constitutions, constitutional design in East Asia.
• Upon successful completion of this week students are expected to be familiar with race and ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity in East Asia.

Course Contents

• Asia in a Comparative Perspective
  What is East Asia? What does constitute East Asia? Is East Asia a part of the Global South? What does shape the development of East Asia in the 21st century?
• Colonialism and Imperialism
  What are colonialism and imperialism? How does colonialism affect modern East Asia? How does the colonial past of East Asia shape the relationship between the state and market?
• Asian values?
  Do cultural factors influence economic and political development? Are Asian values compatible with democracy? Can culture function as an independent variable to explain political outcomes?
• Regionalism and Nationalism
  What are the regional dynamics in East Asia? How do East Asian societies communicate with each other? What do Japan and China show us about the relationship between nationalism and other key aspects of modernization? How did China, Korea, and Taiwan experience Japanese colonialism and why does each country have different attitudes toward the colonizer (Japan)?
• Developing research design
  What is a good research question? How to formulate a thesis statement? How to write literature reviews and bibliographies?What are academic and non-academic sources? What information should be cited and why? Where to find and how to use citation guides?
• China (I): The resilience of the Chinese Communist Party
  The CCP is the second-longest lone-ruling communist party, in one of the world's five remaining party-states. How can we explain its longevity? Why is the CCP able to survive during the economic transition? Is the CPC regime legitimate?
• China (II): Civil society and new middle class
  Classical modernization theory claims that economic growth brings political modernization (democratization). How does Chinese experience support, improve, or challenge the key assumptions of modernization theory? How does economic openness in China change and challenge the party institutions? Can civil society emerge under authoritarian regimes, like the one in China, and how will it affect regime stability?
• Political development of Taiwan
  How can we explain the democratization process in Taiwan? What is the impact of social movements on Taiwan’s democracy? Does Taiwanese identity affect democratic support?
• Japan (I): American influence
  How do the US-Japan relations influence the political development of Japan? Did the United States “export” democracy to Japan? What is America’s role in Japanese nation-building?
• Korea (I): Democratic traditions
  How does politics shape economic policy-making in South Korea after the Cold War? Compare the patterns of democratization in Korea and Taiwan. Who were the actors, and what were their resources? Why did they prevail? What do Korea and Taiwan contribute to our understanding of development and democracy?
• Korea (II): National identity in a divided nation
  What is national identity? How does “national identity” differ from “nationality” and being a citizen (having a passport)? How do Koreans define their national identity? How does national identity develop among a population that has troublesome political borders?
• Economic development and the role of the state
  What are the common features of the developmental model that each East Asian country has pursued? How do the development strategies of each country differ? What explains the sudden rise of the Chinese economy? What is the “China model,” and can it be replicated elsewhere? What are the differences and similarities between the “China model” and development strategies of other East Asian states?
• Party politics and party systems in East Asia
  South Korea, Taiwan, and South Korea are multi-party democracies. What political, economic, and sociocultural determinants have shaped institutional combinations in each country? How are their party politics different and similar? How is the political system in Japan different from other East Asian democratic countries? How does the electoral system in Japan reinforce the dominance of the LDP?
• Gender, Race, and Ethnicity in East Asia
  What have been the major successes of feminist activism in East Asia? How can political institutions and policies shift deeply-held cultural attitudes towards women in East Asian societies? How do legislations aimed at promoting women’s representation in elected public bodies influence the gender dynamics in Japan and South Korea?

Assessment Elements

• Participation during in-class activities
• Media Scan
• Research workshop & discussion of paper proposals
• Mid-term exam
• Participation during in-class activities
• Research essay proposal and bibliography
• Final paper: Research essay
• Final exam

Interim Assessment

• Interim assessment (1 module)
  0.25 * Media Scan + 0.45 * Mid-term exam + 0.15 * Participation during in-class activities + 0.15 * Research workshop & discussion of paper proposals
• Interim assessment (2 module)
  0.4 * Final exam + 0.3 * Final paper: Research essay + 0.15 * Participation during in-class activities + 0.15 * Research essay proposal and bibliography

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

• Shambaugh, D. L., & Yahuda, M. B. (2014). International Relations of Asia (Vol. Second edition). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=726076
• Young-Hee Chang, Jack Junzhi Wu, & Weatherall, M. (2017). Popular Value Perceptions and Institutional Preference for Democracy in “Confucian” East Asia. Asian Perspective, 41(3), 347–375. https://doi.org/10.1353/apr.2017.0017

Recommended Additional Bibliography

• Bevernage, B., & Wouters, N. (2018). The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1702796