Бакалавриат
2026/2027
Сравнительные региональные исследования
Статус:
Курс обязательный (Программа двух дипломов НИУ ВШЭ и Университета Кёнхи «Экономика и политика в Азии»)
Кто читает:
Факультет мировой экономики и мировой политики
Где читается:
Факультет мировой экономики и мировой политики
Когда читается:
1-й курс, 3, 4 модуль
Охват аудитории:
для своего кампуса
Язык:
английский
Кредиты:
4
Контактные часы:
84
Course Syllabus
Abstract
This is the two-term course Comparative Area Studies, a required major (course) for students in the Politics and Economics of Asia, the HSE-KIC Double Degree Program. This course aims to provide students with the basic knowledge and analytical tools for a more concrete understanding of countries and regions of the world by introducing two main disciplines in the social sciences, comparative politics and area studies. Beginning with an examination of key analytical concepts such as institutions and culture, students will explore a range of comparative cases in an attempt to explain various key political, economic, and social outcomes of our time, including state failure, ethnic conflict, economic development, and democratization.
Learning Objectives
- Through the course, students are expected to acknowledge the benefit of the comparative perspective in approaching issues in specific areas of interest, as well as the risk of superficial and non-contextual comparative approaches. In the first term (Module 3), the foundation of a modern nation-state will be thoroughly reviewed with a particular focus on state-building, national integration, political economic system, and democracy. In the second term (Module 4), more concrete cases of democratization, dictatorship, economic development, welfare states, globalization, and so forth, will be discussed from comparative perspectives. Students will be able to exercise the comparative area studies approach by doing a team research project.
- This offering will also contribute to bolstering the academic vigor of those students who are interested in political science or area studies in general, or who aspire to pursue it as their college major.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- Students will be able to define what comparison is and why it is used in explaining political and social phenomena, how comparison is actually used in comparative analysis
- Students also will be able to analyze the challenges the advanced democracies have been facing and what solutions are available with them.
- Students should be able to define: 1. The goal of the course. a. What comparative area studies is b. What is the benefit of comparative area studies
- Students will be able to analyze nonstate actors violence that can take several forms; and that it can be explained by referring to institutions, ideology, and individual personalities; and that responding to violence presents a dilemma for modern states.
- Students will be able to analyze the characteristics of underdeveloped countries and how imperialism and colonialism have affected their state, societal, and economic institutions.
- Students will be able to analyze the nation-building process and the ways in which national identity is formed and binds people together. Students also need to understand the cause of ethnic and national conflict.
- Students will be able to apply comparative approaches and methods to provided cases. The use of concept and conceptualization should be understood properly as the basis of comparative study.
- Students will be able to define democracy and explain its components while explaining why democracy has emerged in some cases and not in others. Students also are required to distinguish different democratic systems as well as to evaluate them comparatively.
- Students will be able to define how states are involved in the management of markets and property. Students are also required to analyze different political-economic systems and to compare them in terms of how each of them provides public goods and collective benefits.
- Students will be able to define the concept of the state as a central institution in comparative studies. Students can also analyze how states can vary in autonomy and capacity, and how this can shape their power.
- Students will be able to describe and understand how political globalization challenges sovereignty; how economic globalization transforms markets and property within and between countries; and how societal globalization undermines old identities and creates new ones. Students are also expected to evaluate and critique globalization and its aftermath.
- Students will be able to describe the major characteristics of developed democracies and to analyze how political, economic, and social institutions differ among them.
- Students will be able to discuss the effects of state control over markets and property and how post-communist states have transformed their economic and political institutions.
- Students will be able to distinguish different type of non-democratic rules and evaluate them comparatively.
- Students will be able to distinguish the various aspects of political violence outside the control of the states.
- Students will be able to explain how post-colonial countries have suffered from ethnic and national division, limited economic growth, and weak states.
- Students will be able to explain the foundations of communist ideology and to describe how communist systems worked.
- Students will be able to explain the institutional foundations and determinants of poverty and wealth, as well as democracy.
- Students will be able to explain the ways in which non-democratic regimes maintain their power.
Course Contents
- Course Overview
- What is Comparison?
- How to compare?
- The State
- Nations and Society
- Political Economy
- Democratic Regimes
- Non-Democratic Regimes
- Political Violence
- Advanced Democracies
- Communism and Post-Communism
- Less-developed Countries
- Newly-developed Countries
- Globalization and Comparative Area Studies
Assessment Elements
- 4th examFour exams (two per semester in multiple-choice, short-answer, and/or fill-in-the-blank formats) will be administered throughout the course, each worth 25 percent of your semester grade. Sample questions, not the actual questions, will be available prior to each exam.
- 3rd examFour exams (two per semester in multiple-choice, short-answer, and/or fill-in-the-blank formats) will be administered throughout the course, each worth 25 percent of your semester grade. Sample questions, not the actual questions, will be available prior to each exam.
- Home assignmentsAn additional 20 percent of your final grade will be based on home assignments graded by the Teaching Assistant.
- 2nd examFour exams (two per semester in multiple-choice, short-answer, and/or fill-in-the-blank formats) will be administered throughout the course, each worth 25 percent of your semester grade. Sample questions, not the actual questions, will be available prior to each exam.
- Lecture attendence
- 1st examFour exams (two per semester in multiple-choice, short-answer, and/or fill-in-the-blank formats) will be administered throughout the course, each worth 25 percent of your semester grade. Sample questions, not the actual questions, will be available prior to each exam.
- Seminar participation20 percent of your grade will be based on your participation in discussion sections, as graded by the Teaching Assistant.
Interim Assessment
- 2026/2027 3rd module0.2 * Seminar participation + 0.2 * Lecture attendence + 0.2 * 1st exam + 0.2 * 2nd exam + 0.2 * Home assignments
- 2026/2027 4th module0.2 * Seminar participation + 0.2 * 4th exam + 0.2 * 3rd exam + 0.2 * Lecture attendence + 0.2 * Home assignments
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- Воскресенский А. Д., Колдунова Е. В., Киреева А. А., Воскресенский А. Д. - Мировое комплексное регионоведение - 978-5-9776-0309-6 - Магистр - 2025 - https://znanium.ru/catalog/document?id=458539 - 458539 - ZNANIUM
- Дергачев В.А., Вардомский Л.Б. - Регионоведение - 978-5-238-01732-7 - ЮНИТИ-ДАНА - 2017 - https://znanium.ru/catalog/document?id=340990 - 340990 - ZNANIUM
- Яшкова Т.А. - Сравнительная политология - 978-5-394-05176-0 - Дашков и К - 2023 - https://znanium.ru/catalog/document?id=431976 - 431976 - ZNANIUM
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- The “Asian Turn” in Russian foreign policy, , 2024