International Politics in the Korean Peninsula I

International Politics in the Korean Peninsula reviews several archetypes of politics and introduces contemporary issues of the inter-Korean relationship. Video lectures will be in Korean, with English subtitles. Discussions, quizzes, and other course content will be in English. This course is the first part of International Politics in the Korean Peninsula; the second part will start this Fall. The course is introduced with two cases where politics brought tragedies: the hyper-inflation in Zimbabwe and the political idolization in North Korea. These two cases provide a good answer to why we study politics. The central content of the course is organized into two modules. First, it will start with several chapters from Records of the Grand Historian (Chinese: 史記), Plutarch's Lives, and History of the Three Kingdoms (한국어: 삼국사기; Chinese: 三國史記) to find out four archetypes of politics: value creation/distribution in a political entity, conflict and cooperation among political entities, development and maintenance of an identity in a political entity, and leadership selection in an entity. The second module of the course will link the four archetypes of politics with contemporary issues of inter-Korean politics and political events in North Korea. These issues will include the Korean Crisis in 2012, the arms race between the two Koreas, the power succession and the simultaneous (nuclear and economic) build-up strategy in North Korea, and upcoming political events. Course videos are presented in Korean with English subtitles. The main course image is copyright © 2013 Seoul National University News.