If you are still looking for a POSC course, here is one that may be of interest to you. POSC 352, Politics of Southeast Asia, is being taught this Spring 2011 on Wednesday evenings form 5-6:20 pm. The instructor for the course, Dr. Jinhee Choung has given a description of the course below. The class will fulfill an upper division COMPARATIVE POLITICS category or an upper division POSC Elective, and there is no prerequisite for the course.
This course provides an introduction to the history, political institutions, and economic development of Southeast Asia (SEA). Reading and discussions are divided into three sections. Section 1 reviews the history of the region, including: the pre-colonial period, the different forms of colonialism, the impact of World War II and the struggles for independence, nationalism, and communism. Section 2 is a survey of nine of SEA’s eleven states (Brunei and East Timor are excluded): Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, and Laos (in a slightly varying depth). In Section 3, drawing on the tools of comparative politics, we consider the impediments to democracy and economic development and why some states in SEA have been able to overcome these obstacles while others have not. We examine the impact of authoritarian leaders, political institutions, developmentalism, and the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis on SEA’s political and economic landscape in the present.
Dr. Jinhee Lee Choung
Lecturer, Department of Political Science
University of Southern California
