Dr Chun Lin CON3.10

This course is available on the MSc in China in Comparative Perspective, MSc in Comparative Politics, MSc in Conflict Studies, MSc in Development Studies, MSc in Global Politics, MSc in Media, Communication and Development and MSc in Politics and Communication. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

For the 2014/15 academic session this course is optional within MSc Comparative Politics and MSc Global Politics. Depending on space it is also open to the other programmes listed above. Students from other MSc programmes may take the course with permission from the teacher responsible. This course is capped at two groups. The deadline for receipt of applications is Friday 10 October 2014.

The course is concerned with recent political development in South and East Asia in their historical and international contexts (Southeast Asia is covered by other courses). We are in particular interested in exploring how and why the idea of democracy has evolved and contested in various forms, patterns and political movements in the region, catalyzing further social and institutional changes and, in some cases, regime transformation. We look at how democracy as a dynamic political project has interacted with forces of market, nationalism, modernization and globalization, with class, gender, ethnic, religious, and spatial identities, and with diverse local and cultural traditions. We examine conflicts, crises and uncertainties in political ideologies and policy processes relevant to the competing interpretations and alternative conceptions of democracy. Comparatively tracing contemporary developments in the region, we learn how democracy in theory and practice is informed by discursive struggle, contentious politics, social movements and newer information technology; and why democracy must be studied historically and critically. At the end of the course, students are expected to be familiar with contemporary politics in South and East Asia, competent in discussing at least two country cases with detailed historical-empirical knowledge, and adapted to writing with a measure of disciplinary fluency in social sciences.

20 hours of seminars in the LT. 4 hours of seminars in the ST.

One seminar presentation and one 1,500-word essay, due in Week 7.

D Beetham, Defining and Measuring Democracy (1994); J Dower, Embracing Defeat (1999); P Anderson, The Indian Ideology (2013); M Woo-Cumings (Ed), The Developmental State (1999); A Chan et al, Transforming Asian Socialism (1999); W Kymlicka & B He (Eds), Multiculturalism in Asia (2005); A Nathan & Y Chu, How East Asians View Democracy (2009); D A Bell, Beyond Liberal Democracy (2006) E Frost Asia's New Regionalism (2008).

Essay (100%, 4000 words) in the ST.