STATE & SOCIETY

IN EAST ASIA
Dr. Anna Kuteleva
akuteleva@hse.ru
 ASSIGNMENT WEIGHT DATE FINAL
MODULE 1 Participation during in-class activities 15% Ongoing

Workshop I (participation and in-class 10% Week 3

activities)

Workshop II (participation and in-class 15% Week 7

activities)

Research questions 20% Weeks 4-7

(due on Fridays via Google Forms)

Mid-term exam 40% Week 8

MODULE TOTAL 100% 40%

MODULE 2 Participation during in-class activities 15% Ongoing

Research essay proposal and bibliography 10% Week 10 / November 5

Final paper: Research essay 35% Week 15 / December 13

Final exam 40% Week 17

MODULE TOTAL 100% 60%

PARTICIPATION
• Grades are based on the amount AND quality of participation.

• If you are absent without a valid excuse, you will receive a zero for that class.

• You will get 0,5% for attending the class and 2% for participation in discussions.

• For poor attendance (less than 60% of classes), there is a penalty of one letter
grade. E.g., an A- will turn into a B+, if you attended less than 8 classes.

• Module 1 participation = 15% of Module 1 grade.

• Module 2 participation = 15% of Module 2 grade.

Research skills workshops
• Research skills workshops (Week 3 and Week 7) are interactive
sessions, designed to prepare you for your written assignments.

• Workshops are worth 10% (Week 3) and 15% (Week 7) of Module 1

grade.
Research question
• For four weeks (from Week 4 to Week 7), you will consider the reading and
lecture topics and then write 2 research questions, justifying why each
question is worth asking (100-250 words for each question).

• Over the course of four weeks, you will need to write 3 observational /
relational questions and 5 causal questions. Altogether, you will submit
8 research questions.

• Each set of questions is work 5%.

• Overall, this assignment is worth 20% of Module 1 grade.
Research Proposal & Bibliography
• Step 1: The short essay – minimum 500 words and no more than 1000 words – will give you the
opportunity to reflect upon and justify your decision for picking a specific problem and, hence,
the research question that you aim at investigating in your final paper.
• Focus on the topics covered in this course. If you want to propose a topic that is not covered in the course,
you need the approval of the instructor.
• Choose a problem and introduce it in two or three sentences.
• Formulate a good causal question for this problem.
• Argue in support of the importance of your question. Why is this question worth asking?

Step 2: Prepare an annotated bibliography, listing a minimum of seven contributions to the topic of
your choice that will help you to answer your research question.
• An annotated bibliography is a list of citations to books, articles, and documents. Each citation is followed by a
brief (usually about 100 words) descriptive and evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The purpose of the
annotation is to inform the reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality of the sources cited.

This assignment is worth 10% of Module 2 grade.

Final paper: Research essay
The paper should be 3000-3500 words in length.
You are encouraged to use the short essay and bibliography for this paper.
You also can change your topic.
The purpose of this assignment:
• to formulate a causal question;
• to collect relevant materials to answer it;
• to demonstrate that you understand what you have read;
• to evaluate the ideas and evidence presented in the sources;
• to articulate your own reactions/reflections.

This assignment is worth 35% of Module 2 grade.

Basic expectations
• The basis for interaction amongst all members of the university is
mutual respect, co-operation, and understanding – this course is no
exception (be nice!).

• ALL components of the course must be completed to receive a

passing grade.

• Respectful and professional communication is important:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC_b57-4eh0&feature=youtu.be
In this course, you can expect me to:

• Welcome and respect your diversity of ideas and interests.

• Be available during office hours (what are those???), for appointments, and via email for
consultations about any aspect of the course.

Where: Room 225, Malaya Ordynka 17

When: By appointment or Wednesdays, 4:30 pm – 7 pm

• Reply to your emails within one day (24 hours). NOTE: I am not able to reply to emails after
20:00 and on weekends.

• Grade assignments promptly (that is, within 2-3 weeks of their submission) and provide accessible
feedback.

• Provide you with opportunities to critically engage with the material and with your peers.

• Provide you with opportunities to reflect on contemporary issues in international politics and offer a
safe and engaging forum for debate and discussion.

• Make any course materials that you are required to read or review will be made available online or
will be easily accessible via the library.
Assignments
All assignments are due via email. They must be in BOTH Word and
PDF format. If you do not send both versions, your assignment is
considered late. If your file format is incorrect, your assignment is
considered late. Each file should be properly named: SURNAME_TYPE
OF ASSINGMENT. E.g.: Smith_MediaScan.doc or Smith_MediaScan.pdf.
Late assignments
• For all assignments handed in late, there is a penalty of one letter grade
per day, with weekends counting as two days. Thus, an A- paper that is 2
days late will receive a grade of B. Unless an extension has been granted in
writing by me, assignments submitted 7 days after the due date will not be
marked and will receive a failing grade.
• GOOD NEWS: Each of you has THREE extension days that you can use
during the course. An extension day gives you an extra day (24 hours) to
hand in an assignment. It is up to you how you use these three extension
days.
• You do not need to inform me why you are using your extension days - you
can have a great reason, an embarrassing reason, or no reason at all. I do
not need to know. All you need to do is to indicate on your assignment if
you are choosing to use your extension days. Extension days CANNOT be
used for your final exam.
Asia in a Comparative
Perspective
Week 1
State and Society in East Asia
What is East Asia?
• What does constitute East Asia?

• Where does East Asia belong?

• What does shape the development of East Asia in the 21st century?
EAST ASIA
 What is state?
What is the difference between state and nation?
• A state is a political system
• A state is a political system that has sovereignty
• A state is a political system that has sovereignty over a population
• A state is a political system that has sovereignty over a population in a
particular territory
• A state is a political system that has sovereignty over a population in a
particular territory, based on the recognized right to self-determination
• A state is a political system that has sovereignty over a population in a
particular territory, based on the recognized (in the UN Charter) right to
self-determination
 Four key characteristics of a state:
• Territory – clearly defined & recognized borders
– “Recognized” by whom?
• Population – without people there is no state
• Government – issues and enforces the rule of law for the
people living within the specifically demarcated territory; must
be recognized from within and by other states in the
international community.
• Sovereignty – the state is the ultimate authority within their
specifically demarcated territory.
 The Modern State
A starting-point for Weber, which contrasted with much earlier thinking, was
that the state could not be defined in terms of its goals or functions, but had
rather to be understood in terms of its distinctive means:

“The primary formal characteristics of the modern state are as follows: it

possesses an administrative and legal order subject to change by legislation, to
which the organized activities of the administrative staff, which are also
controlled by regulations, are oriented. This system of order claims authority,
not only over the members of the state, the citizens, most of whom have
obtained membership by birth, but also to a very large extent over all action
taking place in the area of its jurisdiction. It is thus a compulsory organization
with a territorial basis. Furthermore, today [in the 1920s], the use of force is German political
regarded as legitimate only so far as it is permitted by the state or prescribed sociologist and economic
by it.” (1978, p.56) historian Max Weber
(1864–1920)
 Max Weber’s definition of the state:
“It possesses an administrative and legal order • BUREAUCRACY, a form of organization that has individuals
subject to change by legislation, to which the
organized activities of the administrative staff are
operating and working under established, specified, and
oriented” complex rules.

• SOVEREIGNTY, an ultimate authority within the specifically

“It claims authority over all action taking place in
the area of its jurisdiction”
demarcated territory.

• IMPERSONALITY, states identified with institutions rather

“It is a compulsory organization with a territorial
basis.”
than the personalities of their leaders.

• STATE MONOPOLY ON VIOLENCE, the concept that the

“It has a monopoly of the legitimate use of
physical force” state alone has the right to use or authorize the use of
physical force
 Concepts
Modern states are distinguished from earlier forms of political centralization by such
features as extensive bureaucracy, organized and centralized violence, and impersonality.

State Capacity
– The measurement of a state’s ability to achieve its objectives:
• Control violence / monopoly on the use of force
• A properly functioning bureaucracy (e.g., no corruption, regularity, effective
management)
• Maintain institutions and rule of law
Failed States
– A state that cannot or does not perform its expected functions (also: fundamental lack of
state capacity)
 The State–Society Relationship
– Functioning states have autonomy
from social institutions, yet are
responsive to civil society
– The domestic dimension of the state's
State
institutional mission—its relationship
to civil society—also has seen massive Civil
Market
developments in the 20th century. The society
most significant of these can be seen
in the development of totalitarianism.
 What is development?
What is development is hotly contested – what does counts as
development and what does not?
– Is it the population’s wealth? And how equal is wealth
distribution?
– Is it resource-endowment?
– Is it social & cultural improvements?
 Concepts
• Development can be measured in many ways
• The most common measures of development are economic:
– Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person
– Poverty
– Inequality
• Many indicators of development correlate positively with one
another (but not always)
 What Is Development?
• Economic development was once considered as the
only indicator of development, economy is still
crucial
• Now political and social elements are considered
• Development is more than just how much a
country earns, but also security and freedom,
laws, and openness in society
Democracy & Human Development
Organizations like the UN today give more attention to “human”
development, rather than just economic
Democratic norms better permit human development to take
place
Democracy is not a “cure all” but it does permit important
principles that help development
Abuses of human rights often signals political and social
underdevelopment
 What are the costs of growth?

Cultural Development Sustainability

• Retaining and deepening ones’ culture • Ability to maintain standard of living
• Loss of traditional culture, e.g., due to by conserving resources for future
economic growth generations
• Maintaining the right to self-
determination, including determining
values, norms, traditions, etc.
 Developing Countries: Many Names
• Less Developed Countries (LDCs): less developed nations that are not
part of a structurally integrated system of global capitalism.

• Third World
– a Cold War categorization used between the mid-1950s and the
late 1980s

• Developed/ developing countries

 Global South
Arif Dirlik (2007):
The term “Third World” (1952) suggests that all countries make a choice between socialist or
capitalist modernity. But Asian and African states (29 all together) that participated in the Bandung
Conference of 1955 decided to make a step towards non-alignment and choose a third path to
modernity.
• “The disappearance of the socialist alternative has left behind one hegemonic power, and one
hegemonic ideology: neoliberalism” (p. 13).
What are the origins of the term “Global South”?
– categorization of the 1980s that points out that that wealthy countries are mainly located
in North hemisphere, while poor countries are mainly located in South. This distinctions can
be arbitrary.
– the concept of North-South divide connotes the conventional ideas of development,
inasmuch as it initially emerged as a replacement of an older ideological dichotomy between
West (the capitalist First World) and East (the socialist Second World).
– BUT critical understandings of the North-South divide do not imply scaling regions and
their inhabitants between levels of economic development (= poor/ rich).
– The notion of South implies acknowledgment of the failure of neoliberal ideas as a global
master narrative and the mutual recognition among the world’s subaltern of their shared
condition at the margins of the brave new neoliberal world of globalization.
Legacy of Colonialism
COLONIALISM: exploitation of a
weaker country(ies) by a stronger
one(s) for political, strategic, and
resource interests.
• POST-COLONIALISM: the political
and intellectual struggles of
societies that experienced the
transition from political and
economic dependence to
sovereignty.
• Bandung Conference, a meeting of
Asian and African states –
organized by Indonesia, Myanmar
(Burma), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), India,
and Pakistan – which took place
April 18–24, 1955, in Bandung,
Indonesia.
 The rise of China has been recognized
by South Korea and Japan.
But what about harmony?
Positive perception of China’s growing influence
• South Korea: 48%
• Japan: 23%
Source:
Chu Y., Kang, L., and Huang, M. (2015) How East Asians View the Rise of China. Journal
of Contemporary China 24 (93).
Senkaku Islands / Diaoyudao Islands
 China and South Korea share common aversions rather
than common interests.
China South Korea
1. No war 1. Denuclearization as a precondition for
2. No instability establishing peace on the Korean
3. No nukes Peninsula
2. Unified Korea

China will say: We have South Korea will say: We have

reaffirmed our firm opposition to agreed to achieve
the development of nuclear denuclearization of North Korea.
weapons on the Korean
Peninsula.
 South Korea and Japan:
history is extremely sensitive issue
• Korean liberation from Japanese colonial rule, is officially called
in South Korea “restoration of light.”
• After the WWII, South Korean and Japanese alliances with the
US and the strategic imperative for alliance-based relations has
enabled formal cooperation between South Korea and Japan
despite incomplete healing from the colonial past.
• The issue of “comfort women”
• Textbooks, official visits to the Yasukuni Shrine…
KOREA: The Statue of Peace (평화의
소녀상) also the Statue of Girl

JAPAN: The Comfort Woman Statue (

慰安婦像)
“It is incumbent on Japan to have a correct understanding
of history and take on an attitude of responsibility in order
to partner with us in playing a leading role in East Asia in
the 21st century.”

Remarks by President Park Geun-hye on the 94th March

First Independence Movement Day
March 01, 2013