One main objective in this course is for students to become more familiar with political processes, institutions, and problems in several Southeast Asian countries. (Given the region?s diversity and the time constraints of a one-semester course, not every country in the region is included.) A second is to consider the tensions and interactions between democratisation and other, often counterveiling, ideas and institutions, such as authoritarianism, capitalism, nationalism, and ethnicity. The third is to link the study of Southeast Asian politics to some of the pertinent themes and arguments in the comparative politics literature.

5,000 - 6,000 words of written assessment, comprising essays, seminar papers and an examination as deemed appropriate by the lecturer.