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The Department of Political Science & Diplomacy

 

 

 

Electives for majors

 

Research Methodology

This class is a graduate-level introduction to research methods in political science. In this class, students learn about basic elements of social science research, including, concept formation, descriptive inference, and causal inference. Students also learn about different research methods in political science, including experimental, cross-sectional, comparative, case study, and historical. We evaluate strengths and weaknesses of each method.

Positive Analytical Method

This class is a graduate-level introduction to research methods in political science. In this class, students learn about basic elements of social science research, including, concept formation, descriptive inference, and causal inference. Students also learn about different research methods in political science, including experimental, cross-sectional, comparative, case study, and historical. We evaluate strengths and weaknesses of each method. Data collection methods are covered.

Statistics 1

In order to develop ability to analyze various data, basic statistic concepts are introduced, and the application process of statistic methodologies will be examined. The following subjects will be covered in detail: (1) definition and interpretation of data; (2) probability and variables; (3) probability distribution; (4) sample and sample distribution; (5) reasoning; and (6) verification.

Statistics 2

This course is designed to acquaint students with advanced research tools used by political scientists. Students will review terms and concepts used in the research process, while building on their knowledge of advanced statistical methods. We will build on basic bivariate OLS model to an array of multivariate techniques, including those that incorporate time-serial and cross sectional data and limited dependent variable, etc.

 

 

<Korean Politics>

History of Korean Politics

In order to understand contemporary politics, it is essential to understand the process of historical development of the nation and the state. This course covers the historical development in Korea from the late Chosun until today.

Local Politics

Timely issues of local self-government will be examined. The central government's right to budget and recommendation of party leader and the assembly during the election will be analyzed in order to observe the process of how local governments are influenced by the central government. Many current issues in inter-governmental relations (such as NIMBI) and metropolitan administration local self-government problems will be covered as well.

Seminar on Citizen Participation

Campaigns of citizen participation such as gender, labor, culture, religion, youth, law, corruption, consumer opposition, and minority shareholders' movements will be discussed. Furthermore, in this period of local self-government, grass-root citizens, social movements will be discussed in comparison with cases from several countries in order to build the groundwork for making a new perspective on social changes.

Seminars on Unification Policy

From the comparative aspects of unification from South Korea and North Korea, limits and possibility of unification discussions will be examined. The persisting inter-Korean problems even in the post cold-war era will be discussed from the international, inter-Korean, domestic perspectives to find some possible solutions to these problems.

 

 

 

<Comparative Politics>

Comparative Politics

While understanding major political phenomena in political process, political systems in different countries are compared to emphasize common and special factors. With comparative approach of categorization, political system, political process, and public policy will be discussed. In comparative politics, students are expected to search and examine understanding of political culture, political development, political change, the nation and citizen society, political parties, the assembly, election, the relationships between the assembly and administration bodies, interest groups, political economy, and public policy.

Election and Public Opinion

This course is designed to introduce students to the contemporary study of electoral competition and public opinion. This course consists of two parts. In the first part, students learn about electoral rules, spatial models and empirical electoral studies. In the second part, we will concentrate our attention on four main questions: what is public opinion, how public opinion is formed and changed, how to measure public opinions, and what are the consequences of public opinion in modern politics.

Political Party and Legislature

This course is designed to enhance the students' understanding about the role and function of political parties and the legislature, core elements of modern representative democracies. The key questions that will be addressed in the course are as follows: What are political parties? What is parliament? How did they emerge and transform? What do they do in modern political system? What are their organizational characteristics? What role do they perform – or expected to perform – in a modern representative democracy? We will examine theoretical and/or empirical studies on these topics, with a special emphasis on the development of West European political system.

Comparative Political Economy in Advanced Countries

The formation, development, and change in the Western welfare capitalism will be discussed from the political economic perspectives. How the social policy and the capitalist market economy in developed countries are changing and are related to the political structure of democracy will be studied. Various types of welfare capitalism will be covered, and the impact of globalization and post-industrialization on the change of welfare economy will be discussed. The major topics include public policies such as labor market policies, revenue policies, social policies (industrial disaster, employment and medical insurances and pensions), as well as political economic factors such as labor and capital relations, corporate governance, party system, the relations between the assembly and the administration, and coalition government.

Comparative Political Economy in Developing Countries

The aim of this course is to understand the formation, development and revolution of capital market economy in globalization from the comparative political economic perspective. How the East Asian countries, the Central American nations and the African countries react, facing growing interdependency and integration in the era of globalization will be analyzed.

American Politics

The purpose of this course is to understand the operative mechanism of American Government. This course will cover the foundation of American government, the established institutions of American government (the Constitution, Congress, the executive, federalism, etc.) and the formal and informal means by which citizens exercise control over the institutions of government (elections, political parties, public opinion, interest groups, the media).

Chinese Politics

Various issues on contemporary China including political institutions, elite politics, state-society relations are discussed.

Japanese Politics

The political and social structure of Japan after the second world war will be examined from the perspectives of its continuity and change. The Japanese party structure will be examined from its relations with the USA. This course will seek to evaluate the legitimacy of the Japanese government as a developmental state model.

Russian Politics

Focusing on the Russian Federation, the history, ideological background, leadership, political structure, and political process of federations that became independent from the former Soviet Union. The rise and fall of communism in the former Soviet Union, the process of the collapse of communism, and related problems in the aftermath of post-Soviet period will be examined.

East Asian Politics

This course covers the overall characteristics of economy and politics in East Asia. Party structure, economic development, political development in the East Asian countries will be examined with the concept of 'Asian value' in order to prove the viability.

European Politics

The political phenomena of major countries such as England, France, Germany, Italy and other Scandinavian countries in Europe will be compared. The major topics of discussions include political culture, election, party structure and organization, the assembly, administration, the relations between the central and local governments, political economy, NGO, and new social movements. Furthermore, the formation and development of EU and its policy-making process will be examined.

 

 

<International Politics>

International Political Theories

This course discusses the formation background and developmental process of international politics as well as the competitive western theories on international politics in general to examine the intellectual efforts to understand international relations. Students will develop the ability to analyze and examine related topics in international politics and foreign affairs.

International Security

The causes, types, processes of and the solutions to international conflicts will be dealt in this course. The major causes and process of war will be introduced with many approaches to evaluate theoretical discussions in the field. Furthermore, other than traditional security areas such as the military and economy, other important security-related areas that affect the government policy making and international relations such as resources, environment, and culture will be analyzed

International Political Economy

The important theories in international political economy such as liberalism, realism, and radicalism will be examined. Then the real problematic issues since the second world war such as IMF, international trade, foreign investment will be analyzed from the theoretical perspective. Furthermore, the major issues in the 21st international political economy on development, technology and environment will be evaluated for discussions.

International Relations of East Asia

The international relations theories essential in understanding the international relations of East Asia will be examined. The historical change in international politics since the beginning of the 19th century will be analyzed. Major incidents that shifted the area-specific international relations and foreign policies of related nations will be explained. This course covers the US security policy in East Asia after the 9.11 terrorist attacks as well as the power shifts of four major nations in North East Asia from the perspective of stability in the international order.

Theory of Foreign Policy

The theory of foreign policy, general views, basic approaches, analytical models, foreign policy aims, as well as many other determinants in foreign policy, methods of foreign policy, foreign policy models, and the social origin of foreign policy will be analyzed throughout the course.

International Organization

The process of organization of international politics to maintain peace in the international society will be studied. This course searches methods for international cooperation by analyzing the origin, development, and functions of international and regional organizations in relations to international cooperation, regional groups, and political economy.

Peace Studies

Social scientific analysis frameworks will be sought for philosophical understanding of peace. Furthermore, this course analyzes various studies on how to materialize the peace order in the Korean Peninsula by making it free from threats of war.

 

 

<Political Philosophy>

Ancient & Medieval Western Political Thought

From readings of political philosophers such as Platon, Socrates, St. Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas, the relationships between individuals and groups, between mankind and nature, between authority and domination, as well as between politics and life will be analyzed in detail

Modern Western Political Thought

From the readings of modern western political philosophers such as Machiavelli, Tomas Hobbes, Rousseau, Hegel and Marx, major concepts such as freedom, equality, social contract, and human rights will be deepened throughout the course.

Korean Political Thought

The flows and characteristics of Korean political thoughts since its contact with the West in the late 19th century will be examined. The resistant ideologies against the Japanese occupation, the history of the establishment of a nation-state after liberation, industrialization and political ideologies on democracy will be examined with readings from major political thinkers.

Seminar on Contemporary Political Theory

This course examines the major contemporary political theories from the perspectives of liberalism, democracy, neo-conservatism, communalism, post-modernism, and socialism. Critical understanding and discussions on the overview of political thoughts and arguments between different ideologies will be sought.

Feminist Political Theory

Feminist theories on gender and politics and related issues such as gender equality, women and public policy, as well as gender and democracy will be examined.

 

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