The course is conducted in English。

Governments have played a pivotal role in promoting economic development in East Asia through the logic of developmentalism. Yet, after decades of sustained economic development, income poverty, working poverty, and unequal access to services and quality jobs are now weighing heavily on East Asian economies. Hence, national governments strive to create capable systems of governance in collaboration with local governments, markets, and civil societies to support people through income transfers and welfare services. Focusing on the cases of Taiwan, China, South Korea, and Japan, this class aims to guide the students in understanding how different governance systems address social inequalities, and how Mainland China differs from its East Asian counterparts. This course is divided into two parts. The first one will consist of lectures, discussions, and a data analysis workshop aimed at helping students gain theoretical and data knowledge on governance and social inequalities in East Asia. The second part of the course will introduce students to comparative methods aimed at understanding different cases using empirical studies focused on East Asia; additionally, students will be invited to present conduct their own comparisons on governance and social inequalities in East Asia.

At the end of the course, students will be able to: - Recall the main actors and institutions surrounding the functioning of governance - Indicate and graphically display several social inequality outcomes - Differentiate main governance differences between Mainland China and East Asia - Design, with some guidance, their inequalities own research question aimed at comparing different governance systems in addressing social

The mid-term exam will be in open book format, which means that students are required to respond to a series of close-ended and open-ended questions for the duration of two hours. Students may make use of search engines, reading materials, and Chatgpt within the allotted time. Students will split into groups of 3-4 people for the presentations. Each team will select 2-3 specific regions of interest in East Asia, for the purpose of conducting comparative research aimed to understand the reasons behind social inequalities in East Asia. You may or may not include your own country as a case for comparison, however the inclusion of at least one EA country is required. When preparing presentations, students are kindly asked to specify 1) the specific level of governance they refer to (nation? Province? City?); 2) the type of comparative method chosen; 3) the type of data chosen; 4) secondary data and relevant literature in their references. It is fine if the presentation is not a full-fledged study (that takes a long time to prepare!). If presenters can come up with a preliminary version (or a proposal) for a comparative study, that will suffice. To allow a richer discussion, presenting groups are kindly asked to upload their presentation materials on the NTU cool platform at least 24 hours before the day of their presentation. In lieu of the final term exam, students are required to write a 2000-word report based on comments they received on their comparative study and submit it within one week from the end of the semester (June 13) via email to the instructor at ijinh@ntu.edu.tw. This is also a group assignment.