Dept Sem: Asian Sec/Bottom Up

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course will explore the domestic sources of instability in modern Asia. The focus will be largely on the countries South Asia (India and its neighbors) and East Asia (China and its neighbors). However, particular consideration will be given to the rise of Indian and Mainland Chinese power in recent years. In particular we will look at how internal challenges and their links with cross-border tensions connect with global international relations, regional international relations and local level dynamics. The dynamics we will most assess have to do with identity, resources, sovereignty, ideas, and the distribution of power. The countries and regions most intensively under consideration in this course will be India, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, the Taiwan straits, Tibet, Xinjiang’s Uyghur Autonomous Region, and the Korean peninsula. Students, however, are urged to bring experience or interest in other countries into they papers and into discussion. The growing prosperity of Asia in the last thirty years has fueled growth, funded arms procurement and sharpened competition for prestige in the region. Some scholars argued that, in the absence of institutions of the post-War European variety (such as NATO and European Community), Asian countries would be unable to manage this potentially lethal rivalry. This course will explore some key sources of conflict in modern Asia from the early modern period (1640s) through the waning years of the Imperial Age (1940s) to the present, with stops en route such as the three Indo-Pakistani wars as well as conflicts in the Taiwan Strait. The focus, however, will be primarily on the post-Cold War period in Asia. Students will learn to analyze and evaluate the causes of tension in South and East Asia since the late 1980s viewed in light of the 1997 Asian Crisis, the explicit nuclearization of South Asia after 1998, and the imminent rise to global power of India and China. Specific issues students will learn to consider intensively include cases where economic interdependence, extremism, ethnic relations are causes of tension and insecurity. Students will also learn social science reasoning skills and how to write analytic, argumentative social science essays.