150090 SE Political Systems in East Asia (2020S)

The aim of this course is to introduce students to key methodological and theoretical debates that underpin comparative research. This course familiarizes students with some of the main debates in comparative politics such as how to compare political systems, patterns of transformation in East Asian countries, and how to explain democratisation. We study political systems in East Asia with a view to understanding and explaining their differences and similarities with respect to political institutions, the behaviour of key political actors, their policy-making processes and performance. We will compare the political systems and power dynamics in the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, North and South Korea, Japan, and Singapore.
The seminar is organized in three parts. The first part provides an introduction to system and transformation theory, answering what are states, parties, and civil society. The second part introduces the different political systems of East Asia in detail. In the third part, students will take immigration policy as exemplary to conduct comparative policy analysis. Overall, the seminar aims at integrating theoretical knowledge as well as its application to specific cases in East Asia.
In accordance with the Curriculum of East Asian Economy and Society (EcoS), on successful completion of this seminar, students will have:
• Shown their ability to understand key concepts of political science such as sovereignty, power and legitimacy;
• Demonstrated their knowledge of different theories of political system analysis and be able to apply them to concrete cases;
• Demonstrated knowledge on current development contemporary East Asian political systems including respective ruling bodies, power structures, institutions, etc.;
• Successfully conducted a comparative analysis of case studies, applying and refining academic, writing and research skills acquired before;
• Critically assessed the strength and weaknesses of various theoretical and empirical approaches;
• Improved their skills to analyse and interpret political data and evaluate the quality, validity and usefulness of political science research findings;
• Shown a critical attitude towards political science literature and established points of view;
• Demonstrated intellectual integrity and the ability to be self-critical.
This is a text based course. That means that everyone is expected to attend the class having completed the required readings, ready to participate. During the first part, a common set of research criteria will be built from these texts. Students are strongly encouraged to research and read additional academic literature, a list for further readings is included in the syllabus. For the second part, students are assigned to prepare short written summary applying the research criteria to a specific East Asian country case. In the third part, the class will develop a comparative analysis building on the already acquired knowledge in a designed interactive learning process. A conclusive session will summarise key findings. Serving as a direct preparation for their individual MA thesis, students will submit a seminar paper on an independently chosen research question, concerned with a particular aspect of political systems in East Asia.