Course Descriptions
Required Courses
MIA501 Theories and Approaches of International Relations
The course introduces students to the core issues and major historical developments in the advanced study of international relations, including the key theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding global politics. Through an understanding of different and competing analytical and normative frameworks, including realist, liberal, constructivist, Marxist and critical perspectives, you will learn about how the various actors, forces and ideas have influenced, shaped and transformed past and contemporary international relations and global events. The course will also examine some of the more significant features of the international system – such as how change occurs, the relations between politics and economics, and the interconnections between individuals and governments. Scholarly writings and illustrations from case studies and issues are designed to assist you to better appreciate the dynamic relations between conceptual debates and policy-making in the international arena.
MIA502 Theories and Approaches of Comparative Politics
This course attempts a general survey in the field of comparative politics. Some important concepts and methods of the discipline are introduced. Specific topics include methods and approaches of comparative politics; government, regime and state; unitary, federal and confederal systems; typologies of state-society relations, specifically on bureaucratic-authoritarianism, totalitarianism, corporatism, civil society and populism; political culture and nationalism; interest group and political party; election and political participation; parliamentary, presidential and semi-presidential systems; comparative democracies between majoritarian and consociational model; and lastly on the topic of democratization and regime change.
MIA503 International Security
This course studies the conditions that encourage and permit conflicts between states as well as ways to build lasting peace. Specifically, the course uses structural, domestic, and individual level theories to make sense of the origins of wars. It then employs these theories to shed lights on World War I, World War II, and the Cold War. The course will also study various pathways toward peace by examining the roles of democratic regimes, interdependence, international organisations, alliances, and nuclear weapons in the prevention of wars. Toward the later parts of the course, contemporary security issues will be examined. They include the spread of nuclear weapons, the rise and wane of terrorism, and the on-going power transition between China and the United States. The course will also study prominent hot spots in East Asia that have the potential of triggering military conflicts. They include the Korean Peninsula, the Taiwan Strait, and the South China Sea. The course will conclude with a general assessment of the future direction of international security in the context of an emerging multipolar system.
MIA504 Politics of Global Economic Interdependence
The world economy has become increasingly integrated and interdependent, posing a great challenge to global governance. What role do domestic and international politics play in shaping the global economic order? To what extent do economic forces constrain or empower political actors? This seminar intends to expose postgraduate students to the major debates of global political economy and help students develop an analytical toolkit to study the interplay between the state and the market or politics and economics. We are devoted to understanding international trade, international finance, international production, international development and international migration.
MIA505 Research Methods in International Affairs
This course introduces the methodology of international affairs research. It is divided into two parts. The first concerns ways of thinking about political science theories and reasoning, with a focus on research design for qualitative and quantitative studies. The second discusses political science approaches to collecting and analyzing information and introduces basic methods for quantitative research.
Elective Courses
MIA601 Politics of Development in Asia Pacific
The course provides students with the leading political science theories and approaches to studying the development in Asia Pacific. Specific topics include the strategic context of the rise of Asia Pacific in the post-war era, the roles of state and societies in economic development, factors explaining the diverse trajectories of development among major East Asian states, the relative rise of China, Singapore and South Korea and relative decline of Japan and Taiwan, East Asian regionalism, sustainability of development in the region, and others.
MIA602 Greater China: Identity, Interaction, Integration and Diversity
This course focuses on identity, development, interaction, integration and diversity of Greater China and compares the economic, societal and political development of its four regions – Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Different forces of nationalism, exchanges and globalization have drawn these different parts of Greater China sometimes closer and sometimes apart from each other; nevertheless, they remain separate and distinctive. Their differences are reflected in culture, society, values and norms, and economic and political systems. This course examines the causal factors that have shaped the different destinies of Greater China as well as the forces that are pulling them together or pushing them apart.
The concept of Greater China will be analysed and the four regions’ relationships with each other and with the outside world will be examined. The focus will be put on the period of the last seventy years. During this period, the four regions have had their different paths of modernization, yet at the same time we witness increasingly significant interactions among the four regions. Based on the concept of Greater China, theoretical issues such as the explanatory powers of culture and ethnicity versus economic development and modernization are also considered.
MIA603 International Organizations and Global Governance
This course explores the relationship between major international organizations (the United Nations, the Bretton Woods Institutions (the World Bank, the IMF and GATT/WTO) and global governance. It examines how these organizations, including particular, international regimes have addressed pressing economic, political, and security issues such as global economic cooperation, terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, human rights, environment protection and rising global inequality. The challenges these organizations face and its implications for global order will also be examined.
MIA604 Environmental Politics and Global Governance
This course studies how environmental issues are interconnected with international affairs and globalisation, and how they contribute to creating a new domain in global politics. Through examining the most pressing global environmental challenges that the international community is facing (e.g. climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, etc.), the course intends to help students develop theoretical visions and practical insights to understand better the prominent global environmental issues, and to discuss solutions and alternatives to the current situation.
MIA605 International Politics of the Asia-Pacific
This course focuses on the study of Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, by examining the major issues and themes in the post-World War II international politics of these two vital regions of the Asia-Pacific. In the first part, this course examines through the perspective of history the implications of the rise of China, Japan-United States security cooperation, regional hotspots such as Taiwan and the Korean peninsula, the diversity of cooperative security and economic institutions involving Northeast Asian states, and their political developments and regional interactions. In the second part, this course focuses on relations among the states of Southeast Asia; and between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the US, India, Australia, Japan and China; traditional and non-traditional security issues on post-Cold war Southeast Asia; and Southeast Asian regionalism and economic cooperation.
MIA606 Foreign Policy and International Relations of China
The turn of this century has witnessed China's rising international status in the global arena. Determined to be an important player in a post-Cold War world, China has been carrying out a pragmatic foreign policy to ensure a favorable environment for its economic growth. Through reviewing its relations with the US, Japan, two Koreas, Russia and central Asia, India and south Asia, Europe and Africa, this course aims to further understand how this pragmatic foreign policy has been formed and implemented by the Chinese authorities and the impact of the formation and implementation to the international political order.
MIA607 NGOs, Civil Society and the State
The course equips students with leading theories and approaches for studying the interrelationship between non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society and the state. It examines the rise of NGOs in international, national and local governance and advocacy. Specific topics include the definition and classification of NGOs and civil society, the roles played by NGOs in development, the major approaches to studying NGOs, and the challenges and limitations facing NGOs. It concludes with a preliminary examination of the latest development of civil society and NGOs in the Greater China Region.
MIA608 Ethnic Conflicts and Nationalist Crises
Political, social and cultural movements rooted in conceptions of ethnicity or nationhood is a major feature of the modern world that we live in. This course will focus on the interaction among ethnic communities and nations within the domestic politics of sovereign states. It will introduce students to concepts and definitions of ethnicity and nationalism, explore the historical and contemporary basis for their development and significance, and examine some benchmark research that will guide us to understand these phenomena better. Conflicts generated by nationalist claims for separate statehood or some form of political recognition, and how states respond to such demands, will be discussed. This course will conclude with an investigation into the issue of intervention by other states and international organizations in ethnic conflicts within sovereign states.
MIA609 Youth Movements and Dissent Politics
Youth (student) movement is generally regarded as a phenomenon of youth’s rebellion against the older generation and an important part of dissent politics. Theories or explanations illuminating nature and occurrence of youth movements will be investigated in this course. They include life-course effect, emerge of a new political generation, change of dominant social value and alignment with establishment elites. Prominent cases of youth movements are studied to examine differences and similarities. These cases span from 1960s to 2014, including the 1960s US civil rights and anti-Vietnam War student demonstrations, the 1968 French May Movement, the 1966-69 Chinese Red Guard Movement, the 1989 Tiananmen student movement, the 2013 Arab Spring Movement, the 2014 Taiwan Sunflower Movement and Hong Kong Umbrella Movement.
MIA610 Selected Issues in Contemporary Chinese Politics
The period of study focuses on the economic reform era since late 1970s. This course focuses on the social and political aspects of the reform and puts special emphasis on the effect of the reform measures and open-door policies initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the post-Mao Zedong period. Changes in both the state and society in the last almost five decades will be studied. Reform measures taken by the state and reactions from the society are the two major lines of investigation. Depending on the instructor’s expertise, several important and argumentative social, economic and political issues in contemporary China will be selected for study in this course.
Capstone Project
MIA615 Master of Arts in International Affairs Capstone Project
This course aims to provide students with the opportunity to co-work as a team to examine and address important and real-world problems in international affairs. A small group of students, utilizing their knowledge acquired in their study and guided by a supervisor, will identify a pressing and real-world problem in international affairs and propose a new policy approach to address and solve that problem.