Political Science

This course provides basic knowledge of politics and society of the Democratic People`s Republic of Korea (DPRK; North Korea). This course is a mixture of area studies and international relations, particularly focusing on North Korea as a case study. Topics include DPRK political systems, governance, and economy; international sanctions and their impact, nuclear development, human rights, media and information control, and the future of the Korean Peninsula.  Based on basic information of internal dynamics of North Korea, students are expected to search for motivations to study further issues regarding North Korea. By the end of the semester, students find themselves to be better equipped with various approaches to North Korean politics and society. 

Recent events in global politics have forced the memory of empire into the public domain. Equally, changes in the international system have prompted analysts of various stripes in the public domain to refer to the US, China, Europe or Russia as ‘empire’. These changes have been reflected in political science with American Empire Debate, a turn toward history and critical voices calling for the decolonization of the discipline and a call for a recognition of the importance of empire in shaping global politics. A sub-discipline of comparative empire studies has emerged that overlaps history with IR and calls for ‘epistemic decolonization’ have arisen alongside scholarship which offers colonization as a viable policy option. With the disciplines of the social sciences being largely oriented around the state, this course takes as its focus empire as its referent object and asks: why has political science paid it so little attention? What is an empire and how do we theorize it and study it? What does the introduction of empire as a field of study mean for political science and how we understand the international system? This course takes empire as its object of inquiry and provides students with an interdisciplinary map for the various ways it has been theorized and understood. The aim of the course is to examine and assess in comparative frame the different kinds of analytical tools and methodological problems that might be applied to the study of empire. It will pose the theorization of empire as a problem which will be explored conceptually, methodologically and empirically. Finally, we explore what empire as a political form or category of analysis contributes to our understanding of global politics

This course explores the impact of demographics, infrastructure, political and public will, global economic conditions, and geopolitical circumstances on healthcare systems. Topics include evidence-based health policy research and the need to carefully assess healthcare delivery systems in individual countries to identify initiatives, patterns, and mechanisms that have most likely contributed to successful reforms and sustainable financing arrangements. Students examine comparisons among European Union and other actors with special reference to the debate on health care in the United States. Students learn about, assess and understand these unique interests, needs, and historical experiences that shape current health care at the national level. Visits to private and public health institutions in all student locations are included and compared for a multinational/multicultural understanding.

This course is an introductory course on international relations in the post-Cold War and globalization era. Through the basic history and theory of international relations the course examines the relationship between international relations and domestic politics in the post-Cold War era, the influence of international relations on domestic politics, and the importance of international relations. In the first half, it historically traces the process of change in international relations from the formation of the modern international order to the contemporary international order of the post-Cold War and globalization. In the second half, it understands and compares various perspectives, theories, and concepts on the nature of international relations in the globalization era. 

This course is designed to help students to deepen their understanding of key concepts in security studies and then apply them to real world situations. Students will be provided with a series of case studies from the post 1945 era and contemporary conflicts to develop their knowledge of concepts and theories introduced in this course. 

This course covers global social problems and policies and develops competencies to respond to human needs emerging from interdependence between countries and societies. It introduces the broad field of global social policy by analyzing theory, social policy change, and social policy outcomes. Structurally, the course is divided in four parts. The first introduces classic social policy, discussing the main concepts and theories developed in the Western world during the 19th and 20th century. It also illustrates the main explanations proposed in the literature to investigate welfare state development and Esping-Andersen's welfare regime typologies (and the main critiques to his comparative framework). The second introduces social policy in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and East Asia. It combines a general understanding of welfare regimes in these continents with a more specific appraisal of some national case. The third highlights the main challenges (namely new social risks, family changes, economic crises) for welfare states in the Post-Fordist era and analyzes how different countries are coping with social change. The fourth and last part of the course considers welfare states as an independent variable: alternative welfare state configurations have different effects on redistribution and the economic competitive advantage of countries.

As a sui generis system or system of its own kind, the European Union has been the subject of research and scholarship since its founding days in the 1950s. Not only did it develop from the Coal and Steal Community into a fully-fledged economic and partially political union, it also attracted ever more members to join over time, which is specifically true today: Following Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, the EU showed unprecedented unity in standing up against Putin and opening its membership door to Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia. In this course we focus on both developments: in the first part of the course, we examine they key historical stages to understand how the EU became an ever-deeper Union and learn about European integration theory, which can explain the deepening of integration to us. What does the EU regulate and how can we explain the expansion of competences under EU rule? The second part of the course covers different perspectives on the widening of EU integration – why, if at all, should the European Union enlarge? How does widening affect the deepening of EU integration? And how can EU integration support/impede the democracy and security of its candidate countries? Overall, the course combines perspectives on how the EU became what is it with discussions on the potential new Member States in order to allows students to understand the implications of new EU integration.

As a core course in the department’s program on East Asian studies, this graduate-level course, conducted fully in English, explores various dimensions of the political, economic, and social developments of the People’s Republic of China since 1979. In addition to familiarizing the students with the empirical evidence and relevant methodology of such developments, this course also introduces the theoretical evolution/debates both in China studies and authoritarianism in comparative politics. An extended goal of this course is to prepare the students for delving into new research topics and conducting independent field research in China in the future. Students have to finish all the required readings and be prepared for heavy class participation before each class meeting. Lectures by the instructors where necessary play a supplementary role only.

This course examines the processes of political and social changes and their impact on economic institutions and processes. Topics include: how to make collective decisions for a group of individuals with heterogeneous needs and preferences; typical failures of different voting rule; designing a voting rule that makes rational decisions and satisfies some minimal democratic requirement; how governments and electoral competition work; why economic competition and electoral competition are so different in nature; the role and influence of interest groups in the political process.

This course examines the long-term perspectives of environmental and climate change policies in France and Japan, considering historical developments, current challenges, and future prospects. It engages with a range of sources in French, English, and Japanese to develop a comprehensive understanding of the policies, strategies, and frameworks implemented in the context of environmental and climate change.  The course provides an opportunity to develop one's ability to analyze and compare the approaches and effectiveness of environmental and climate change policies between France and Japan.

This course will be essentially taught in English and, depending on the students' proficiency level in French, will use some or many documents in French.