POL1921: Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development in East Asia

Home to the world?s most advanced economies and mature democracies, but also history?s biggest authoritarian party and one of the poorest totalitarian states ? East Asia is a region full of contrasts despite their interconnected pasts. How do we understand the political trajectories of China, Japan, North/South Korea, and Taiwan, as they experienced significant socioeconomic transformations from the late 19th century up until the present? In this freshman seminar, we will examine the entangled relationship between modernization and political systems through a comparative lens, and ask what East Asia can teach us about the evolution and persistence of democratic and authoritarian regimes in the rest of the world.

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