International Political Economy With a Regional Focus

Extract

The theories of international political economy certainly lend themselves to classroom teaching. And courses on Asian politics and society have long been offered. Typically, however, international political economy and Asian studies are not formally mixed in a single course offering.

My task was to devise a restricted-enrollment, upper-level seminar which encompassed political economy theory applied specifically to Asia. The department offered no courses in political economy, and the only offerings on Asia were two courses in Chinese politics I had taught the prior semester.

Despite the lack of supporting coursework, the topic proved to provide an interesting conceptual focus, and students became quite engaged with the subject matter. Further, it appears that an explicit geographical focus may help, rather than hinder, the teaching of political economy concepts. The body of theory in international political economy is rather abstract in the absence of application to concrete situations. The Asian areas examined (Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea) provided stimulating grist for such concepts as interdependence, the connections between “high politics” (security policy) and “low politics” (economic relations), and the dependency-vs.-developmental models of economic growth.