GFCP 424B: Government and Politics of Southeast Asia
Course Instructor: Paige Johnson
Phone: 984-3127 (call anytime)
e-mail: johnson_paige@hotmail.com
Office Hours: T, R1:15pm to 2:30pm and by appointment
Office location: Cabell B-24
This course provides a broad survey of the domestic politics of the Southeast Asian region. It is organized into three parts: Introduction, Country Studies, and Issue Studies. The introductory sessions highlight the region today, its early history, as well as the impact of colonialism and national liberation movements. Country studies will be used to involve students in more depth in the politics of selected countries. Nations studied in this part of the course include Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. The last part of the course examines specific issues and discusses those issues with reference to the region as a whole, bringing in both countries studied in the Country Studies portion of the course as well as those omitted. These issue-oriented classes are aimed at encouraging students to think broadly about similarities and differences across the countries of the region.
Course Requirements
Students will be evaluated on a book review (15%), a research paper (25%), class participation (10%), a midterm (20%), and a final examination (30%).
Students will read the book, Dead Season, on politics in the Philippines, for their book review. The book review should be 6-8 pages in length and is due October 19. Details on how to approach a book review will be discussed in class.
The research paper assignment is designed to allow students to pursue their individual interests in the domestic politics of the Southeast Asian region. Projects should focus on answering a how or why question about the operation of politics within one country or across a selection of countries. Paper topics must be approved by the instructor by September 21. One-page outlines of the project are due November 2. First drafts of the paper are due November 16; final papers are due December 7. Guidelines as to style and content will be provided. Papers should be roughly 10 to 12 pages in length.
Class participation counts for 10% of the overall course grade. In this seminar-style course, student participation is vital. We will spend many class sessions discussing the assigned readings and building our discussion from those readings. Absences are strongly discouraged.
The midterm will be held on October 3. This in-class exam will cover the introductory section of the course. There will be short answer questions and an essay. In each section, you will be given a choice of questions to answer.
The open-book, take-home final exam should be turned in to the faculty assistants in Cabell Hall 232 by 12:00pm on Friday, December 15. Three essays (about 4 pages each) will be required. The strongest essays will demonstrate good argument; solid organization; understanding of class material presented in lecture, readings, and discussion; and thought!
College of Arts & Sciences Deadlines
To add the course: September 12
To drop the course: October 10
Required Books
Berlow, Alan. Dead Season. New York: Vintage, 1996.
Neher, Clark D. Southeast Asia in the New International Era. Boulder: Westview, 1998.
Race, Jeffrey. War Comes to Long An. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972.
Steinberg, David Joel, et al. eds. In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History. Honolulu: University
of Hawaii Press, 1987.
Course Packet available at The Copy Shop, 5-B Elliewood Avenue (phone: 295-8337). The packet is also on reserve at Clemons Library. Additional readings may be passed out from time to time in class or via e-mail.
Other Resources: World Wide Web
General links to scholarly resources and news about Asia:
AsiaGateway at http://www.asiagateway.com
Asia Society Asia Source Homepage at http://www.asiasource.org
Asian Crisis Homepage by Nouriel Roubini at
http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/asia/AsiaHomepage.html
Asian Studies at the Australian National University at
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-AsianStudies.html
BBC East Asia Today at http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/eastasiatoday
CNN/Time/Asiaweek at http://www.cnn.com/AsiaNow
Channel News Asia (Singapore) http://www.channelnewsasia.com
East Asia Center (EAC) Asialinks at http://www.virginia.edu/~eastasia/easia13.html
Far Eastern Economic Review (Hong Kong) at http://www.feer.com
Foreign, Comparative, and International Resources from the Department of Political Science
at Louisiana State University at http://www.artsci.lsu.edu/poli/foreign.html
Political Resources on the Net: Asia at http://www.politicalresources.net/asia.htm
Political Science WWWVL at http://www.lib.uconn.edu/PoliSci
International Affairs WWWVL at http://www.etown.edu/vl
Please contact the instructor if you need help finding world-wide web information on any
particular Southeast Asian nation.
Periodicals, Scholarly Journals, and US Government Publications
As wonderful as the web is for research, periodicals and scholarly journals still form the backbone of our academic work. Some periodicals/journals helpful for the study of Southeast Asia/Comparative Politics are listed below:
American Political Science Review
Asian Survey
Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars
Comparative Political Studies
Comparative Politics
Current History
Electoral Studies
Foreign Affairs
Journal of Contemporary Asia
Journal of Democracy
PS Political Science
Pacific Affairs
Pacific Review
Party Politics
Survival
World Politics
Electronic Communication
I have set up an electronic list for the course. Messages sent to the course list will be sent to all course participants. I will use the list from time to time to send out reminders about course deadlines and occasionally current news stories from Southeast Asia that we might discuss in class. Students are strongly encouraged to use the list as well--to communicate about issues raised in class, reading assignments, or anything else that comes to mind. Send messages to gfcp424b@toolkit.virginia.edu for broadcast to the course list.
Introduce students to the aims of the course, review syllabus and course requirements, examine the political geography of the region.
Introduce course themes/questions. We will return to these ideas throughout the course. They will provide a framework for our thinking about Southeast Asian politics. Begin study of the region with various peoples and religions.
Readings: Steinberg, David Joel, ed. In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987, pp. 9-59.
Why is it important to understand the nature of the precolonial systems of government? Explore the Vietnamese imperial system with special attention to borrowing from China, the nature of village society and economy, and Vietnamese political factiousness.
Readings: Steinberg, David Joel, ed. In Search of Southeast Asia: A Modern History. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987, pp. 60-95.
Note: Think about the general area in which you would like to do the research for your term paper. Topics need to be approved by Thursday, September 21.
Continue to explore important precolonial systems of government and trade in the region--focus on Hindu-Buddhist ideas of monarchy, center-local relations in the Indianized kingdoms, and authority and trade in the Islamic sultanates.
Readings: Luis Filipe Ferreira Reis Thomaz, "The Malay Sultanate of Melaka," in Anthony Reid, ed. Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era, Ithaca: Cornell, 1993, pp. 69-90.
Explore colonialism in the region generally as well as in Indonesia (Dutch), Malaysia (British), and Vietnam (French) in particular.
Readings: Steinberg, pp. 99-138, 173-202, and 282-331.
Note: Paper topics need to be approved by next Thursday, September 21. Have you talked to your instructor yet?
Finish discussion of colonialism. Be able to answer the following questions: Why did the Western nations engage in imperialism in Southeast Asia? How were the imperialists able to gain control in the region? How were domestic politics transformed by the advent of colonialism? The domestic economy? How, of all the Southeast Asian states, was Thailand able to maintain its (at least nominal) independence?
Readings: M.C. Ricklefs. A History of Modern Indonesia Since c. 1300. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993, pp. 109-147. Steinberg, pp. 139-145, 160-170, 269-281, 332-339.
Meet at Clemons Library Room 313 for video. Vietnam: A Television History. The focus today will be on Vietnam's war against the French, 1945-1954.
Readings: None assigned for today, but you should be starting Race's War Comes to Long An and Womack's "The Party and the People" for next session; this is a heavy reading assignment.
Paper topics need to be approved by today.
Today will be exclusively devoted to discussion of the assigned readings. BE FOREWARNED!!! We will answer the following questions: When did "the Party" win in the South according to Race? How did the Party win, according to Race? According to Womack? Why did US involvement in the war not stop the collapse of the South Vietnamese regime? How does Womack link revolutionary success to post-revolutionary problems in Vietnam?
Readings: Jeffrey Race. War Comes to Long An. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972 (concentrate on Chapters 1-3) and Brantly Womack, "The Party and the People: Revolutionary and Postrevolutionary Politics in China and Vietnam," World Politics, July 1987, pp. 479-507.
To learn more about the war in Vietnam from the U.S. perspective, look up
Battlefield Vietnam at PBS. The address is
http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/index.html.
Sept 28 National Liberation Movements III: Merdeka for Indonesia and Malaysia
Contrast Vietnam’s independence struggle with the peaceful path taken by Malaysia and the combination (guerrilla war/negotiations) strategy pursued by Indonesia.
Readings: Ricklefs, pp. 151-233.
Oct 03 Midterm Examination
Note: In this section of the course, we will be exploring in more depth the politics of selected countries. Keep in mind the course themes. They will serve as the basis for making cross-national comparisons.
Oct 05 Thailand: Democratization of the Bureaucratic Polity?
Answer the following questions: Where does political power lie in Thailand? Which institutions are most important? How are
political parties organized? What is the role of the military? How can a coup be welcomed by the population? Have we seen the
last coup?
Readings: Chapter on Thailand in Neher. Kevin Hewison. "Emerging Social Forces in Thailand: New Political and Economic Roles," The New Rich in Asia: Mobile Phones, McDonalds, and Middle-Class Revolution. London: Routledge, 1996, pp. 137-160.
To learn more about Thailand, consider reading Thailand’s English-language
daily, The Nation, at http://www.nationmultimedia.com.
Note: Have you started reading the Dead Season? Book review is due in two
weeks, October 19.
Cambodia has a tragic modern history. From suffering from bombing during the
Vietnam War to the ghastly campaign for power and reign of the Khmer Rouge,
to her isolation in the 1980s, to the 1997 "coup" by Hun Sen. Cambodia's politics
have been tragedy for almost thirty years. Today’s session will focus on the
Khmer Rouge regime. How was the Khmer Rouge able to come to power?
What types of policies did it pursue? How and why was the regime overthrown?
Readings: David P. Chandler. Brother Number One. Boulder: Westview, 1992, pp. 112-164.
To learn more about Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, look up the
Cambodia Genocide Program at http://www.yale.edu/cgp.
SPECIAL OUTSIDE CLASS ACTIVITY: Room 313 at Clemons Library will be reserved this evening from 6:00pm to show The Killing Fields, an Academy-award winning movie which describes the horrors of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. I hope you all can make it, even if you have seen the film before. I guarantee you will get more out of the film with your new understanding of the Cambodian political situation.
Today’s session will focus on Cambodia’s politics since the Khmer Rouge, focusing on three distinct periods: Cambodia as a normal, but devastated Communist country (1979-1989), the build-up to peace (1989-1993), politics since the UN-organized elections (1993-present). The session will focus on the interplay of international and domestic factors in Cambodian political outcomes.
Readings: Chapter on Cambodia in Neher. Selections from William Shawcross, Deliver Us from Evil: Peacekeepers, Warlords, and a World of Endless Conflict. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000, pp. 49-59, 70-82, 92-96, 104-109, 115-118, 207-213.
Note: Book review due next Thursday, October 19.
Oct 17 Philippines: The People Power Revolution and Its Aftermath
What continuities can we observe throughout the timeline of Filipino politics?
What changed after Marcos' 1986 ouster? Is there a disjunction between the
democratic institutions in the Philippines and the operation of politics? Why is it
that the People Power revolution may not have lived up to all the hopes of the
revolutionaries?
Readings: Chapter on the Philippines in Neher. “Remembering EDSA.”
Available from Philippine News-Link. Undated. [ONLINE].
http://www.datu.com/edsa/main.htm.
To keep up with news from the Philippines, try http://www.philnews.com or
http://www.philippineupdate.com. To learn something more about Philippine
President Estrada, go to http://erap.com.
Oct 19 Philippines: Politics in the Rural Areas
Questions above. Discuss with reference to the Dead Season.
Readings: Berlow, Dead Season.
Book review due today.
Oct 24 Fall Reading Days—no class
How does Malaysia manage its diversity? How has the UMNO-led coalition maintained its dominance of the political system?
Readings: Chapter on Malaysia in Neher. Chapters on “The Government” and “Opposition Political Parties” in Harold Crouch. Government and Society in Malaysia. Ithaca: Cornell, 1996, pp. 32-76.
To learn more about Malaysia, look up Malaysian political parties, Mahathir's
speeches, The Malaysian System of Government, and Vision 2020 from the East
Asia Center homepage. Also, try Malaysiakini, the voice of independent
journalism in Malaysia (Malay- and English-language articles). Find Malaysiakini
at http://www.malaysiakini.com.
Review paper guidelines.
Note: One-page outline of research project due next Thursday, November 2.
This session will attempt to develop an understanding of the broad sweep of Indonesia’s post-independence politics. Why did parliamentary democracy fail the first time around in the 1950s? What was Guided Democracy? How was Suharto able to develop such a long-lasting authoritarian regime?
Readings: Cribb and Brown. Modern Indonesia: A History Since 1945. London: Longman, 1995, pp. 32-143.
Why did Suharto fall? What can the development of political parties tell us about the nature of Indonesia’s evolving politics?
Readings: Review Cribb and Brown, pp. 47-81. Handouts on contemporary developments.
One-page outline of research project due today.
Our focus today will be on the party-state and economic development strategies in Vietnam from 1975-1986.
Readings: Gareth Porter, The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993, pp. 64-127.
Explore Vietnam's reforms since 1986. How have politics changed? How has the economic system changed? How has Vietnam’s international position changed?
Readings: Chapter on Vietnam in Neher.
Note: Due date for the first draft of the research paper is coming up, November
16.
Countries highlighted - Burma, the Philippines, Thailand, and Indonesia
Discuss the diversity of roles played by the military in the nations of Southeast Asia. This session will highlight many aspects of political development in the Southeast Asian nations which are similar to those of developing nations in other parts of the world. Why is the military often a strong institution? How does this impact wider politics in our countries?
Readings: Chapter on Burma in Neher. Takashi Shiraishi. “The Military in Thailand, Burma, and Indonesia.” Robert Scalapino, Seizaburo Sato, and Jusuf Wanandi, eds. Asian Political Institutionalization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
Countries highlighted - Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam
Is there an Asian Democracy different from Western liberal democracy yet fundamentally democratic just the same or is Eastern Democracy just a constructed ideology, underpinning authoritarian rule? Has the philosophy of Asian Democracy been undercut by the economic crisis? What are human rights? Are they universal?
Readings: Denny Roy, "Singapore, China, and the Soft Authoritarian Challenge." Asian Survey, March 1994, pp. 231-242. Skim the chapter on Singapore in Neher. C.V. Devan Nair. “Foreword.” Francis Seow. To Catch a Tartar. New Haven: Yale Southeast Asia Studies, 1994, pp. ix-xxx. Anwar Ibrahim. Asian Renaissance. Singapore: Times, 1996, pp. 47-91. “Survey of Human-Rights Law.” Economist. December 5, 1998, pp. 3-16.
To learn more about human rights in Southeast Asia, go to Amnesty International
from the East Asia Center homepage.
First drafts due today. Under NO (ZERO, NONE) circumstances should class be missed to finish the draft!!!
Countries highlighted - All
What is the relationship between democracy and development? Does democracy help or hinder development? Is an authoritarian regime better suited to carry out development? Is democracy just for the rich?
Readings: Clark Neher and Ross Marlay. Democracy and Development in Southeast Asia: The Winds of Change. Boulder: Westview, 1995, pp. 1-27, 188-202. Richard Robison and David S.G. Goodman. "The New Rich in Asia: Economic Development, Social Status, and Political Consciousness." The New Rich in Asia: Mobile Phones, McDonalds, and Middle-Class Revolution. London: Routledge, 1996, pp. 1-16.
Nov 23 Thanksgiving Holiday--Makan!!! (That's Malay/Indonesian for Eat!)
Countries highlighted – Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam
What functions do elections serve in Southeast Asia?
Readings: Taylor, R.H., ed. The Politics of Elections in Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 1-33, 61-89, 136-163.
Countries highlighted – Burma, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam
Facing a variety of constraints in Southeast Asia, how does an active or would-be opposition choose its strategies? What is Chee’s approach? How about Malaysia’s DAP? Aung San Suu Kyi’s?
Readings: Chee Soon Juan. Dare to Change: An Alternative Vision for Singapore. Singapore: Singapore Democratic Party, 1994, pp. 16-27, 30-54, 138-153. Aung San Suu Kyi. “Work for the People’s Interests.” National League for Democracy Radio Broadcast. Undated. [ONLINE]. Text available online from Digital Freedom Network at http://www.dfn.org/Voices/Asia/burma/nld/11ann8888assk.htm.
Required web: Visit the homepage of Malaysia's Democratic Action Party (DAP), accessible from the EAC homepage.
Countries highlighted – Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia
What is the Asian Miracle? Was it a miracle? How was it achieved? What were the benefits and costs from chosen growth strategies? How did growth matter for politics?
Readings: No assigned readings.
To learn more: Lots of information is available on the web about economic development. Try accessing Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) from the EAC homepage. Country portions of the website have access to ministries of trade, economic development plans, and statistics.
Note: Final drafts of the research paper are due on Thursday, December 7.
Because I will be traveling to the Netherlands for a conference almost immediately
after class, your papers MUST be on time.
Countries highlighted – Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia
While there is no one consensus answer as to why the Asian crisis occurred, this session will explore different arguments over causes of the crisis as well as differing proposed remedies. How has the crisis mattered for politics?
Readings: Mahathir Mohamad. “World Must Work Together to Curb Currency Trading.” Straits Times (Singapore). November 4, 1998, p. 35. David E. Sanger. “Mahathir Gives Davos a Jolt.” Straits Times (Singapore). February 2, 1999, p. 37.
To learn more, visit the Asian Crisis Homepage of Professor Roudini at NYU’s Stern
School of Business. The address is
http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/asia/AsiaHomepage.html.
Hand out Final Exams.
Final draft of research paper due. Under NO (ZERO, NONE) circumstances should class be missed to finish the paper!!!
Dec 15 Final Examination.
Please turn in your final exams to one of the faculty assistants in Cabell Hall 232
by 12:00pm on Friday, December 15. Make sure that my name is indicated
prominently on the front cover of your essays.