Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL3270: East Asian Regional Order

This module descriptor refers to the 2021/2 academic year.

Module Aims

This module aims to provide you with the analytical tools to critically examine East Asia’s increasingly complex security environment and the pathways to regional order. You will develop a keen awareness of competing analytical visions of regional order, the historical evolution of order in East Asia and the implications of contemporary security challenges to regional order.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

This module's assessment will evaluate your achievement of the ILOs listed here – you will see reference to these ILO numbers in the details of the assessment for this module.

On successfully completing the programme you will be able to:
Module-Specific Skills1. Analyse key theoretical frameworks and contemporary debates on East Asian regional order
2. Demonstrate a good understanding of how East Asian regional order has evolved
3. Critically assess contemporary regional security challenges and their implications for regional order-building
Discipline-Specific Skills4. Critically evaluate IR theories, concepts and frameworks
5. Apply IR theories, concepts and frameworks to empirical case studies and construct analytical arguments
Personal and Key Skills6. Conduct independent research and write cogent analytical essays
7. Exercise critical independent thinking and formulate critical arguments
8. Communicate effectively through submitted written work, group presentations and seminar contributions

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Goh, Evelyn (2013). The Struggle for Order: Hegemony, Hierarchy, and Transition in Post-Cold War East Asia (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Goh, Evelyn and Rosemary Foot (2019). ‘The International Relations of East Asia: A New Research Prospectus’, International Studies Review 21(3): 398-423.

Loke, Beverley (2021). ‘The United States, China, and the Politics of Hegemonic Ordering in East Asia’, International Studies Review. doi: 10.1093/isr/viaa096

Pekkanen, Saadia, John Ravenhill, and Rosemary Foot (eds) (2014). The Oxford Handbook of the International Relations of Asia (New York: Oxford University Press).

Yeo, Andrew (2019). Asia’s Regional Architecture: Alliances and Institutions in the Pacific Century (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press),