GREAT TRANSFORMATIONS:
UNDERSTANDING THE RISE OF INDIA AND CHINA (ULEC 2710)
Fall 2012
Time: Lectures on Wednesdays 4:00 – 5:20 p.m.
Location: 66 5th Avenue, Room 101
Instructor: Sanjay Ruparelia, Assistant Professor of Politics, New School for Social Research
Introduction
This course surveys the origins, transformations and rise of India and China since the mid-twentieth century. It seeks to explain their divergent paths to modernity, focusing on their political economies, in comparative historical perspective. The first part of the course examines post-independent India: how a society committed to modern representative democracy, planned industrial development and international non-alignment became increasingly shaped by economic liberalization, ascendant cultural nationalism and the empowerment of historically subordinate groups. The second part analyzes the trajectory of post-revolutionary China: from the establishment of the People‘s Republic in 1949, and its attempts to create a modern communist society through the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, to a post-Maoist regime defined by capitalist reform, limited political liberalization and increasing global power. The last part of the course compares the records of India and China in securing political liberty, economic opportunity and social equality for their citizens, examines their impact on the global political economy and analyzes their possible futures.