Politics II

Haruko Satoh (Graduate School of Human Sciences)

Cource Objective
   This is a course on modern politics designed to familiarize students with concepts, ideas, and political forms, such as democracy, nationalism, liberalism and conservatism, Marxism, fascism and totalitarianism, in their historical and contemporary contexts. As such, the course will examine and discuss contemporary events and controversial political issues with a view to understanding their root causes and historical background.

Requirement / Prerequisite
   These are courses that you must have studied previously in order to take this course, or courses that you must study simultaneously. There are no pre-requisite courses for Politics II, but a general understanding of political terms and concepts covered in Politics I as well as familiarity with modern European history would be useful.

Course Content
   WEEK1 Introduction
   WEEK2 What it means to be "modern"
     -John Grey, Al Qaeda and What it Means to be Modern, pp. 1-58;
     -Tzvetan Todorov, Hope and Glory, pp. 1-47;
     -Ian Buruma, Taming the Gods, pp. 13-46
   WEEK3 What it means to be "modern" II
     -Jose Ortega y Gasset, The Rebellion of the Masses
   WEEK4 The modern state I: role of democracy
     -Sunil Khilnani, The Idea of India, pp. 1-60
     -Masaru Tamamoto, "Reflections on Japan's Postwar State," in Daedalus, Vol. 124, No. 2, 1995, pp. 1-22
   WEEK5 The modern state II: what is the state for?
     -Barry Buzan, People, States & Fear, pp. 65-103.
     -Susan Strange, "The Defective State," in Daedalus, Vol. 124, No. 2, 1995, pp.55-75.
   WEEK6 Nations and nationalism
     -E. H. Carr, What is History?, pp. 25-4
     -E. J. Hobsbawn, Nations and Nationalism since 1780, pp. 14-45; 101-130.
     -Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, "Introduction" by John Breuilly, and in main text, pp. 1-7; 118-130.
     -Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen
   WEEK7 Liberty Lost: Fascism, Nazism and Totalitarianism
     -Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism
     -Primo Levi, If Not Now, When?
     -Arthur Koestler, Darkness At Noon
     -Jerzy Kozinsky, The Painted Bird
     -Franz Kafka, The Trial
     -Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum
     -Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
   WEEK8 Short student presentations and discussion
   WEEK9 History and Identity I
     -Charles S. Maier, The Unmasterable Past, pp. 66-99; 121-158.
     -Jeffrey Olick, "What Does It Mean to Normalize the Past?: Official Memory in German Politics since 1989," in State of Memory, pp. 259-288.
     -Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence, pp. 149-169.
   WEEK10 History and Identity II
     -Carol Gluck, "The 'End' of the Postwar: Japan at the Turn of the Millennium," in State of Memory, pp. 289-314.
     -Tong Zhang & Barry Schwartz, "Confucius and the Cultural Revolution: A Study in Collective Memory" in Jeffrey Olick (ed), State of Memory: Continuities, Conflicts and Transformations in National Retrospection, pp. 101-127.
   WEEK11 Values and politics: Clash of civilizations in my country?
     -Samuel Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations
     -Tzevtan Todorov, The New World Disorder
     -Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence, pp. 40-58; 84-102.
   WEEK12 Yasukuni Controversy: A Case of Identity Politics
     -John Breen (ed), Yasukuni, the War dead and the Struggle for Japan's Past
     -Hoshino Toshiya & Haruko Satoh, "Through the Looking Glass: China's Rise as Seen from Japan," Journal of Asian Public Policy, Vol. 5, No. 2, July 2012, pp. 181-198.
     -Haruko Satoh, "Japan and China: Reaching Reconciliation or Stuck in the Past?", Chatham House Briefing Paper, ASP BR 06/02, October 2006.
   WEEK13 Student Presentations (individual research)
   WEEK14 Student Presentations (individual research)
   WEEK15 Group discussion on what it means to be modern

Textbooks
   There are no set textbooks for this course. There will be a reader compiled with all the material cited on the syllabus.
   However, students are asked to read at least one of the following novels. The first three are relatively short; the last three are long.
  
   -Primo Levi, If Not Now, When?
   -Arthur Koestler, Darkness At Noon
   -Jerzy Kozinsky, The Painted Bird
   -Franz Kafka, The Trial
   -Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum
   -Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
  
   (If the student wishes to buy a personal copy, please ask the instructor.)

Grading Policy
   Participation in discussion: 20%
   Individual short presentation: 10%
   Individual long presentation: 20%
   10-page, double spaced length, final research paper: 50%
  
Assessment requirements

• Attendance at 80% of all sessions is required.
• Academic misconduct (cheating, collusion, plagiarism or falsification of information) in all forms of written work, lab tests, demonstrations, designs, presentations, in-class tests and examination can lead to consequences ranging from loss of marks in the relevant course to zero grades for all classes taken that semester.