Type of Credit: Elective
Credit(s)
Number of Students
The course is concerned with recent political developments in East and South Asia. In addition to the issues that have long been central to research in democratisation in the region concerned and studied extensively, we draw attention to some important/new issues that have been neglected in the existing literature. These issues include: the contesting conceptions of democracy (e.g. the ‘liberal vs. illiberal democracy’ debate); the relations between gender, development and democracy; and the impact of globalisation on democracy.
能力項目說明
We are particularly interested in how the idea of democracy has evolved, what it means and what institutional arrangements it entails in different parts of the region concerned. We are also interested in how democracy has interacted with the forces of development, modernisation and globalisation, of nationalism and ethnic, religious and other political-cultural traditions. We shall examine how and why, despite conflicts and uncertainties, democracy has become increasingly influential in political processes, policy formulations and ideological commitments. By focusing on the current political and socio-economic, and in some cases regime, transformations, we will learn how the concept of democracy is continuously contested in Asia, ideologically as much as institutionally. At the end of the course, students are expected to be familiar with contemporary political changes in South and East Asia, and competent in discussing at least two country cases with detailed historical and empirical knowledge. Students should also achieve a sophisticated awareness of the difficulties with theorisation at the time when the idea of democracy has achieved global dominance with ever fewer competitors for legitimacy and legitimation.
| 教學週次Course Week | 彈性補充教學週次Flexible Supplemental Instruction Week | 彈性補充教學類別Flexible Supplemental Instruction Type |
|---|---|---|
Week 1 (Feb. 21) Course introduction and overview
Week 2 (Feb. 28) No class—Peace Day (public holiday)
Week 3 (Mar. 6) General themes about democracy in Asia (I):
current status and prospect
Readings:
* Suggested readings:
Week 4 (Mar. 13) General themes about democracy in Asia (II):
democracy and liberal democracy
Readings:
Week 5 (Mar. 20) Japanese democracy: External engineering, party politics and Bureaucracy
* Film: The Emperor (political history of Japan after the end of WWII under the American occupation)
Readings:
* Suggested reading:
1. Potter, David, 1996, ‘Democratization in Asia’, in David Held (ed.), Prospects for Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press)
Week 6 (Mar. 27) Indian democracy: colonial legacy, modernisation,
and governability (I)
Readings:
* Suggested readings:
1. Brown, J., 1985, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy (Oxford: OUP)
Week 7 (April 3) Indian democracy: colonial legacy, modernisation,
and governability (II)
Readings:
1. Brass, P., 1999, ‘India: democratic progress and problems’, in Harrison, et al (eds.), India and Pakistan: the First Fifty Years (Cambridge: CUP)
2. Das Gupta, Jyotirindra, 1995, ‘India: Democratic Becoming and Developmental Transition’, in L. Diamond, J. Linz and M. Lipset (eds.), Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy (Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner)
3. Ray, Aswini K., 2002, ‘Globalization and democratic governance: The Indian experience’, in C. Kinnvall and K. Jönsson (eds.), Globalization and Democratization in Asia: the Construction of Identity (London: Routledge)
4. Jenkins, Rob, 2008, ‘India: Associational Life and Its Discontents’, in Peter Burnell and Vicky Randall (eds.), Politics in Developing World (Oxford: OUP)
* Suggested readings:
1. Kohli, Atul, 1990, Democracy and Discontent: India’s Growing Crisis of Governability (Cambridge: CUP)
2. Kohli, Atul (ed.), 2001, The Success of India’s Democracy (Cambridge: CUP)
Week 8 (April 10) Democracy and authoritarianism in South Asia
* Film: The Day When India Burned (history of 1947 partition in India)
Readings:
1. Chadda, M., 2000, ‘The history of democratic experience in South Asia,’ Building Democracy in South Asia: India, Nepal, Pakistan (N. Y.: Rienner)
2. Jalal, Ayesha, 1995, ‘State formation and political processes in India and Pakistan, 1947 to 1971,’ in Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A comparative and historical perspective (Cambridge: CUP)
3. Odenburg, Philip, 2010, ‘Clearly divergent paths,’ India, Pakistan and Democracy: Solving the puzzle of divergent paths (London: Routledge)
4. Taylor, David, 2008, ‘Pakistan: The Military as a Political Fixture,’ in Peter Burnell and Vicky Randall (eds.), Politics in Developing World (Oxford: OUP)
*Suggested readings:
1. Jalal, Ayesha, 1995, ‘The colonial legacy,’ in Democracy and Authoritarianism in South Asia: A comparative and historical perspective (Cambridge: CUP)
2. Cooper, F., 2005, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (California: U of California Press)
Week 9 (April 17) Mid-term exam week: guest speech or proposal discussion
Film Formosa Betrayed or documentary on Singapore’s history & presentations of final paper proposals.
Week 10 (April 24) Democratisation in the NICs: state capacity and
regime change (I): South Korea and Taiwan
Readings:
3. Potter, David, 1997, ‘Democratization at the same time in South Korea and Taiwan’, in David Potter et al (eds.), Democratization (Cambridge: Polity)
4. Leftwich, A., 1995, ‘Bringing the state back in: towards a model of the developmental state,’ Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 3, No. 13, Feb. 1995
* Suggested readings:
1. Potter, David, 1997, ‘Explaining democratization’, in David Potter et al (eds.), Democratization (Cambridge: Polity)
2. Robinson, M., and G. White (eds.), 1998, The Democratic Developmental State: Politics and Institutional Design (Oxford: OUP)
Week 11 (May 1) Democratisation in the NICs: state capacity and
regime change (II): Singapore and Hong Kong
Readings:
1. Ng, Margaret, 1998, ‘Why Asia needs democracy: a view from Hong Kong’, in Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner (eds.), Democracy in East Asia (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP)
2. Bell, Daniel A. and Jayasuriya, Kanishka, 1995, ‘Understanding illiberall democracy: a framework’, in Daniel Bell, David Brown, Kanishka Jayasuriya and David Martin Jones (eds.), Towards Illiberal Democracy in Asia Pacific (London: MacMillan)
3. Cotton, James, 1997, ‘East Asian democracy: progress and limits’, in Larry Diamond et al (eds.), Consolidating the Third Wave Democracies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press)
4. Slater, Dan, 2013, ‘Strong-State Democratization in Malaysia and Singapore,’ in Larry Diamond, Marc F. Plattner and Yun-han Chu (eds.), Democracy in East Asia: a new century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP)
* Suggested readings:
1. Hill, M. and L. K. Fee, The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore (London: Routledge)
2. Chan, Ming, 1997, ‘The legacy of British administration of Hong Kong: a view from Hong Kong’, China Quarterly, No. 151, 1997
Week 12 (May 8) Debating democracy in China
Readings:
*Suggested reading:
1. X Zhang, 2001, ed. Wither China: Intellectual Politics in Contemporary China, Duke UP
Week 13 (May 15) Ethnic, religious and linguistic politics and democratisation
Readings:
1. Wolpert, Stanley, 1999, ‘India, the Multicultural Paradigm’, Orbis, Vol. 43, No. 4, Fall 1999, pp. 575-79
2. Dreyer, June Teufel, ‘China, the Multicultural Paradigm’, Orbis, Vol. 43, No. 4, Fall 1999, pp. 581-97.
3. Dasgupta, J., 2001, ‘India’s federal design and multicultural national construction’, in Atul Kohli (ed.), The Success of India’s Democracy (Cambridge: CUP)
4. Aspinall, Edward, 2008, ‘Indonesia: Coping with Fragmentation,’ in Peter Burnell and Vicky Randall (eds.), Politics in Developing World (Oxford: OUP)
Week 14 (May 22) Democracy and democratisation in Southeast Asia
Readings:
*all readings are very short
Week 15 (May 29) Democracy, development and gender
Readings:
1. Przeworski, Adam, 1993, ‘The neoliberal fallacy’, in Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner (eds.), Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy Revisited (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP)
2. Randall, Vicky, 1997, ‘Why have the political trajectories of India and China been different’, in David Potter et al (ed.), Democratization (Cambridge: Polity Press)
3. Clark, Cal and Lee, Rose J., 2000, ‘Women’s Status in East Asia’, in Rose J. Lee and Cal Clark (eds.), Democracy & the Status of Women in East Asia (London: Lynne Reinner)
4. Ling, L.H.M., 2000, ‘The limits of democratization for women in east Asia’, in Rose J. Lee and Cal Clark (eds.), Democracy & the Status of Women in East Asia (London: Lynne Reinner)
Week 16 (June 5) Democracy and human rights
Readings:
1. Christie, K. and D. Roy, 2001, The Politics of Human Rights in East Asia (London: Pluto) “Introduction”
2. Bell, D. A., 2000, East Meets West: Human Rights and Democracy in East Asia (NJ: Princeton UP) “Introduction, Ch. 2”
3. Bauer, J. and D. A. Bell, 1999, eds. The East Asian Challenge for Human Rights (Cambridge: CUP) “Introduction, Ch. 1”
4. Sen, A., 1999, ‘Democracy as a universal value,’ Journal of Democracy, 10:3
5. Van Ness, P., 1999, ed. Debating Human Rights: Critical Essays from the United States and Asia, (London: Routledge) “Chs. 2 &3”
Week 17 (June 12) Democracy, culture and legitimacy
Readings:
1. Lipset, M., 1996, “The centrality of political culture”, in L. Diamond and M. Platner, eds. The Global Resurgence of Democracy, John Hopkins UP
2. Parekh, B., 1994, “Cultural diversity and liberal democracy”, in D. Beetham, Defining and Measuring Democracy, Sage.
3. Sen, A., 2004, “Passage to China”, New York Review of Books 51:19, 2 Dec 2004
4. Zakaria, F., 1994, “Culture is destiny: a conversation with Lee Kuan Yew”, Foreign Affairs 73:2, Mar/Apr 1994
5. Kim Dae Jung, “Is culture destiny? The myth of Asia’s anti-democratic values”, Foreign Affairs, Nov/Dec 1994
6. Fukuyama, F., 1995, “Confucianism and democracy”, Journal of Democracy, 6:2, 1995
* Suggested reading:
Pye, L., 1985, Asian Power and Politics: The Cultural Dimensions of Authority, Harvard UP
Week 18 (June 19) End-of-term exam week
*Wrap-up and presentations of final essays
1). submit one essay (term paper) of around 3000 words at the end of the semester;
2). present/ discussing readings (at least once during the semester);
3). participate in class discussion.
*Presentation: students can choose to present the main points of the assigned readings OR discuss an essay question from the list of Essay Questions provided by the teacher by incorporating assigned readings into the presentation. Extra materials related to the week’s topic are appreciated yet the assigned readings should be covered in the presentation.
*The deadline for submitting final essay: one week after the final class
3. Final grade is calculated as follows:
Final essay accounts for 50%;
Class participation, including presentation and class discussion, accounts for 50%;
Note:
Regarding the use of ChatGPT for the course, including presentation and final essay, the usefulness of ChatGPT cannot be denied. But you will be ONLY allowed to use it for initial search for references or materials for your presentation and essay. We will require all of the students to talk about their final essays (proposal and/or draft) in the last week of the class. That would be helpful for us to know whether you write your final essay yourself.
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