Although Asia has clearly been the world’s outstanding developmental success story since World War II, as reflected for example in the steady increase of emerging Asian in world trade (increasing from 21% in 1990 to 34% by 2006), the study of Asian politics has been hitherto dominated by area studies and to a lesser extent international relations; the comparative analysis of Asian polities has been rare and relatively unsystematic. There are good reasons for this, including the bewildering diversity and exoticism of this vast continent, but as Asia rises economically it also becomes more economically and politically integrated, creating a basis to understand its patterned similarities and differences. Still, this is an introductory course in a field that is only emerging. The purpose of the course is to immerse advanced undergraduate students in the available analytical literature on contemporary Asia for the purpose of encouraging further comparative teaching and research.
The Junior Seminars are intense writing seminars which focus on the research area of the faculty member teaching the course. The seminars provide an opportunity for students to have direct intellectual interactions with faculty members while also giving the students an understanding for faculty research.
This junior seminar falls within the "Comparative Politics" subfield, and can fulfill an upper-division requirement for the major.
Political Science Majors of Junior and Senior status (must be 3rd or 4th year students with at least 60 units completed) with a minimum overall UC GPA of 3.3. Students must place themselves on the waitlist through TeleBEARS in Phase II. Priority may be given to students who have not yet taken a junior seminar. Selection and notification will occur in mid-August 2014.