Fall 2004

CONFLICT AND PEACE IN ASIA

 

Khmer Rouge Killing Fields, Cambodia

 

Directed Independent Study (DIS 591)

with Professor Paige Tan

Department of Political Science

UNCW

 

DAY AND TIME: Wednesday, 4:50pm-5:45pm

LOCATION: 272 Leutze Hall

 

 

Course Rationale:

 

This course, designed in collaboration between the student and the instructor, aims to explore the theoretical literature associated with conflict and conflict resolution and to begin a consideration of Asian politics via an exploration of a selection of conflicts in the region.

 

Course Requirements:

 

Course content will be based upon weekly one-on-one meetings between the professor and student during which the student will explore the major themes from the week’s reading and critique the authors’ approaches.  This is not a lecture course.  It is vital that the student come to class each week with outlines of the assigned readings and prepared to discuss with the instructor key concepts and potential applications of those readings.  The instructor will question and probe the student to further her own understanding, elucidating concepts and facts only as necessary. 

 

In addition to the required readings, as spelled out in the course schedule below, the student is required to follow contemporary international political news from Asia in order to discuss contemporary conflicts and political issues from the region.  This is vitally important in furthering the student’s ability to continue to teach herself about the issues covered in the course long after the semester is over.

 

The student will be evaluated on the basis of three fifteen-page papers to be completed during the course of the semester (as assigned in the schedule below) and the quality of the student’s participation in one-on-one session with the instructor.  The instructor will be evaluated on the degree to which she is able to motivate and assist the student in developing her own understanding of the fields of conflict resolution and Asian politics.  The instructor aspires to inspire interest on the part of the student and to show concern with the student’s overall intellectual progress.

 

Required Books (for purchase):


Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, eds.  Turbulent Peace: The Challenges of Managing International Conflict, Washington: USIP, 2001.

 

Roger Fischer and William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In, New York: Penguin, 1991.

 

Ronald J. Terchek, Gandhi: Struggling for Autonomy, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.

 

 

Course Schedule:

 

 

DATE AND TOPIC

                                                                                                                                                           

 

8/18  INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORY.  Syllabus finalization and signing. LECTURE: REALISM, LIBERALISM, AND CONSTRUCTIVISM. READING: Current news from Asia.  QUESTION: Can you identify Asia’s current conflicts?  Are you a realist, a liberal, or a constructivist?

 

8/25  CAUSES OF INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT.  Syllabus finalization and signing. READING: Crocker, xv-xxix, 3-27. QUESTIONS: Be able to delineate causes of conflict.  How do we get from understanding causes to finding solutions?  Can you link causes to international conflicts/theories identified last week?

 

9/1 CAUSES OF DOMESTIC CONFLICT:  ECONOMICS, ETHNICITY, AND POLITICAL ENTREPRENEURS.  READING::  Crocker, 143-162, 163-188, 209-226.  Lambang Trijono, “Religious Communal Conflict and Multi-track Resolution: Lesson from Ambon, Indonesia,” May 2001, Center for Security and Peace Studies, Universitas Gadjah Mada [ONLINE] http://www.csps-ugm.or.id/artikel/Pus001LT.htm [accessed August 3, 2004]. DISCUSS:   Civil conflict, with particular reference to communal conflict in Maluku, Indonesia.

 

9/8 THE FIELD OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION. READING: Crocker, 407-426.  Browse the Conflict Resolution Information Source at http://www.crinfo.org/. QUESTION: How can this information be of use in Asia?

 

9/15 APPROACHES TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION: NGO’S.  READING: Crocker, 365-384, 637-658.  View the website of the International Crisis Group to learn more about the organization’s current programs at http://www.crisisweb.org.

 

9/22 APPROACHES TO CONFLICT RESOLUTION: NEGOTIATION AND MEDIATION. READING: Fisher and Ury, entire.  Crocker, 427-444.

FIRST PAPER DUE:  SOLVING AN ASIAN CONFLICT. 

 

9/29  CONFLICT IN ASIA: DECOLONIZATION, PART 1.  Reading: Terchek, entire.  Watch: Gandhi (movie).  Focus: Gandhi’s thought and non-violent resistance in India.

 

10/6 CLASS CANCELLED DUE TO INSTRUCTOR TRAVEL.

 

10/13 CONFLICT IN ASIA: DECOLONIZATION, PART 2.  READING: Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An, Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1972 (concentrate on Chapters 1-3) (PHOCO).  David Joel Steinberg, ed.  In Search of Southeast Asia, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987, 245-268, 292-311, 332-339, 405-430 (PHOCO). DISCUSS:  Violent and negotiated approaches to the independence struggle, the tangle of the Cold War.

 

10/20 THE GLOBAL ECONOMY AND THE ASIAN FINANCIAL CRISIS.  READING: Joseph E. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents, New York: Norton, 2002, 23-132 (ON E-RESERVE FOR PLS 427). 

SECOND PAPER DUE:  ON ASIAN POSITIONS IN WTO NEGOTIATIONS.

 

10/27  BUILDING PEACE THROUGH REGIONAL ORGANIZATION: ASEAN.  READING: Crocker, 561-583.  Amitav Acharya, Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, London: Routledge, 2001, 15-101 (PHOCO).  DISCUSS: ASEAN and the Cambodia conflict.

 

11/3   BUILDING PEACE THROUGH INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION: THE UNITED NATIONS.  READING: Crocker, 529-560.  Simon Chesterman, "Bush, the United Nations and Nation-building," Survival, 46, 1, Spring 2004, 101-116 (ON E-RESERVE FOR PLS 427).  Paulo Gorjao, “The Legacy and Lessons of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor,” Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 24, No. 2, 2002 (VIA LIBRARY’S ONLINE JOURNAL DATABASES).  DISCUSS: UN peacekeeping in Southeast Asia.

 

11/10  PEACE AND GENDER. READING: Elisabeth Rehn and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Women War, and Peace, New York: United Nations Development Fund for Women, 2002, Chs. 5, 6, and 9 (AVAILABLE ONLINE AT http://www.unifem.org/index.php?f_page_pid=149).

 

11/17 REBUILDING WAR-TORN SOCIETIES/RECONCILIATION.  READING: Crocker, 719-752, 841-854.  Learn about reconciliation efforts in East Timor at http://www.easttimor-reconciliation.org/.

 

12/1  REBUILDING: DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS.  READING:  Crocker, 753-800.

THIRD PAPER DUE: ON EFFECTIVE PEACE EDUCATION IN AN ASIAN CONTEXT.