Lecture 01 Globalization, Social Change and Welfare Arrangements in East Asia
(Prof. MOK Ka Ho, Chair Professor of Comparative Policy, Acting Vice President [Research and Development], HKIEd)

Introduction to Speaker

Ka Ho Mok is Chair Professor of Comparative Policy, concurrently he is Acting Vice President (Research & Development) and Director of Centre for Greater China Studies of the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). Before joining the HKIEd, he was Associate Dean and Professor of Social Policy, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Hong Kong (HKU). Being appointed as founding Chair Professor in East Asian Studies, Professor Mok established the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Bristol, UK before taking the position at HKU. Professor Mok is no narrow disciplinary specialist but has worked creatively across the academic worlds of sociology, political science and public and social policy while building up his wide knowledge of China and the region.
Professor Mok graduated from London School of Economics and Political Science in the early 1990s. Since then, he has published extensively in the fields of comparative education policy, comparative development and policy studies, and social development in contemporary China and East Asia. In particular, he has contributed to the field of social change and education a variety of additional ways not the least, of which has been his leadership and entrepreneurial approach to the organization of the field.  He has been awarded the First Annual CIES (Comparative and International Education Society) Higher Education SIG Best Article for the academic year 2008-2009.
His membership on numerous editorial boards, commissions, in key scholarly societies all contribute to the recognition that he is among the best in his field. He is a founding editor of Journal of Asian Public Policy and Comparative Development and Policy in Asia Book Series (published by London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group). In the past few years, Professor Mok has also worked closely with the World Bank and UNICEF as International Consultant for comparative development and policy studies projects.  He was also a part-time member of the Central Policy Unit, The HKSAR Government. From April 2010, Professor Mok has been elected as Changjiang Chair Professor by the Ministry of Education, People’s Republic of China, serving at Zhejiang University, Hangzhou China.

 

Lecture Outline
Hong Kong and Macau, like many other East Asian countries, have been experiencing enormous economic hardships due to rapid economic restructuring, especially after the Asian financial crisis in 1997 the global financial crisis in 2008. Without satisfactorily dealing with the consequences resulted from the economic restructuring, “deep-seated conflicts” have driven the governments of Hong Kong and Macau very hard to try to devise new and appropriate measures to tackle these economic and social problems in recent years. Before the 1997 Asian financial crisis, both governments strongly believed rapid economic growth would eventually resolve social and economic problems. However, such a growth-driven economy strategy, together with the “productivist welfare regime” which typically characterized by attaching heavy weight on economic growth but ignoring the importance of social protection, has been exposed to challenges of rising unemployment and growing poverty. In this lecture, the major objectives are to review the major social, economic and demographic changes in Greater China region and examine how governments in the region has made attempts to address changing welfare needs / expectations of people by reforming the social welfare / social policy delivery.

Required Reading
Mok, Ka Ho. 2011. 'Right Diagnosis and Appropriate Treatment for the Global Financial Crisis? Social Protection Measures and Social Policy Responses in East Asia', in Gyu-Jin Hwang (ed.), New Welfare States in East Asia: Global Challenges and Restructuring (Chapter 8), pp. 155-174. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing.

Research Interests
Comparative development and policy studies
Comparative social policy and governance
Comparative education policy

July 04 (Thursday)

Lecture 02 Public Policy Making in Authoritarian China: the Case of Health Care Reforms
(Dr. HE Jingwei Alex, Assistant Professor, Department of Asian and Policy Studies, HKIEd)

Introduction to Speaker

BSocSc MSocSc (Xiamen University)  
PhD (National University of Singapore)

Dr He Jingwei, Alex is Lecturer of the Department of Asian and Policy Studies, at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). He also serves as the Programme Leader of the Master of Social Science Education (Greater China Studies) at HKIEd, and Chair of the Departmental Teaching & Learning Committee.

Dr He received his PhD degree in Public Policy from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore in 2011. He specializes in public policy analysis, health policy and governance, and public administration, with particular reference to the Greater China region. Dr He has published dozens of scholarly articles and book chapters in these areas, and some of his works appeared in leading international journals including Public Administration Review, the China Quarterly, Public Administration and Development, China: An International Journal, and so on. He also has a portfolio of 30 academic publications in the medium of Chinese.

Leading two internal grant projects, his current research focuses on China’s healthcare reforms at the local, especially provincial level, with the aim of examining the role played by intermediary sub-national governments in translating central reform mandates and managing local initiatives, and the political economy involved.

Dr He is the Secretary General of the Asian Society for Institutional Analysis (ASIASIA, 2010 to present) and alumnus of the Ronald Coase Institute (2009). He was the recipient of the Ronald Coase Institute Fellowship, NUS Research Scholarship, and First Prize of the All-China University Student Research Project Competition (the Challenge Cup, with teammates).

Synopsis

How are public policies made in China used to be a puzzle to many China observers. The Maoist politics, factional struggle, ideological orthodoxy and lack of predictable institutional mechanisms were their old descriptions. These, however, can hardly explain policy-making in a country which has undergone dramatic economic transition and sociopolitical changes in the past three decades. Yet, un-updated knowledge still thwarts people from understanding the actual policy-making mechanisms in authoritarian China. This lecture takes health care reforms as examples to illustrate how public policies are made in the central level. It reviews four major health policy reforms in the past decade, which are, the launch of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme, the halted hospital privatization reform, the current national health care reform, and the sluggish public hospital reform, and maps out policy actors, institutions, and politics involved. The lecture synthesizes policy theories and political dynamics in explanation. With health policy as a window, audiences will uncover the black box and gain better understanding on how policies are actually made in contemporary China.

Readings

Yuanli Liu & Keqin Rao (2006), Providing Health Insurance in Rural China: From Research to Policy, Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 71-92.

William C. Hsiao (2007), The Political Economy of Chinese Health Reform, Health Economics, Policy and Law, no. 2, pp. 241-249.

Alex He Jingwei (2011), China’s Ongoing Public Hospital Reform: Initiatives, Constraints and Prospect, Journal of Asian Public Policy, vol. 4, no. 3, pp. 342-349.

Courses taught

Comparative Health Policy
Comparative Social Policy
Political Economy of Greater China
Politics and Public Policy in Greater China
Research Methods
Managing Development and Civil Society in Greater China

 

Lecture 03 Aging and Social Security in Asia
(Prof. CHOU Kee Lee, Associate Head & Professor, Department of Asian and Policy Studies, HKIEd)

 

Introduction to Speaker

B.Soc.Sc.(The University of Hong Kong)
MA (University of Texas at Austin)
PhD (University of Strathclyde)

Professor Chou joined the HKIED as Professor and Associate Head of the Department of Asian and Policy in 2012, before that, he was associate professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Administration of the University of Hong Kong. He has wide research interests in areas like geriatric psychiatry, elderly policies, population policy especially immigrant policy, poverty, welfare reform, income inequality and health policy. In the past decade, he has published over one hundred papers in international journals, and some of them with a high impact factors more than five. His research work with older adults in Hong Kong and elsewhere has given him a high profile internationally and he has been ranked in the top one percent of scholars on the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) since 2009. Professor Chou has conducted plenty of policy research projects funded by the Research Grant Council (RGC) and the Central Policy Unit. Currently, he is conducting a five-year study on retirement income protection in Hong Kong funded by the RGC Strategic Public Policy Research Fund and one on the poverty of children living immigrant families funded by RGC Public Policy Research Fund. He is the Associate Editor of Aging and Mental Health, the section editor of BioMed Central Geriatrics and also a Member of the Editorial Boards of the Asian Pacific Journal of Social Work and Development and Journal of Aging Research.

Synopsis

This seminar will provide an assessment of the factors that have driven public pension spending in Asia and projections of future public pension spending, as well as public attitudes towards the role of the government in providing pensions. Then I will examine the reform experiences of some developed countries in Asia so that lessons could be drawn on the establishment of fiscally sustainable and equitable pension systems. The role of the public and private sectors in ensuring retirement income adequacy will be examined. Specifically, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong will be used as case studies.

Suggested Readings

Handayani, S.W. and Babajanian, B. (2012). Social Protection for older persons: Social Pensions in Asia. Asian Development Bank: Philippines.

Park, D. (2011). Pension systems and old-age income support in East and Southeast Asia: Overview and reform directions. Asian Development Bank: Philippines.

Park, D. (2013). Ageing Asia’s Looming Pension Crisis. In The Changing Pension Landscape in Asia and the Pacific. OECD and World Bank.

Research Areas

Mental health in old age
Retirement income protection
Poverty
New immigrants

Course Taught

Capstone Project (Phase I) GCS 3009/GCS23012
Introduction of Social Sciences (II) SSC1148.

 

July 08 (Monday)

Lecture 04 The New Asian Century? The Political Economy of Asia's Economic Growth, Inequality, and Bad Governance
(Prof. Darryl Stuart JARVIS, Head & Professor, Department of Asian and Policy Studies, HKIEd)

Introduction to Speaker
Darryl S.L. Jarvis
BA MA Flin. PhD Br.Col.

Darryl S.L. Jarvis is Associate Dean (Research and Postgraduate Studies) and Professor of Global Studies, Faculty of Liberal Studies and Social Sciences, at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Prior to his current appointment he was Vice Dean (Academic Affairs) and Associate Professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore (NUS). From 1996 to 2006 he was Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Government and International Relations, Faculty of Economics and Business, at the University of Sydney, Australia. His research and teaching interests focus on international and political risk, comparative public policy, regulation, infrastructure, and the political economy of investment into Asia.

He has published widely in the areas of international relations, investment risk, regulatory politics, and the political economy of investment issues. His recent publications include The Politics of Marketizing Asia. Palgrave Macmillan (Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy Series)(Forthcoming) (with Toby Carroll); ASEAN Industries and the Challenge from China. Palgrave Macmillan (with Anthony Welch); Infrastructure Regulation: What Works, Why, and How do we Know? Lessons from Asia and Beyond, World Scientific (with Ed Araral, M. Ramesh & Wu Xun); Handbook of International Business Risk: The Asia Pacific. Cambridge University Press; International Relations and the Challenge of Postmodernism: Defending the Discipline, University of South Carolina Press; International Relations. Still an American Social Science? Toward Diversity in International Thought, State University of New York Press (with R. M. Crawford); and Post-modernism and its Critics: International Relations and the Third Debate, Greenwood / Praeger.

He has also contributed articles to journals such as Journal of Contemporary Asia (UK); Asian Studies Review, Journal of Asian Public Policy, European Journal of Law and Technology; Regulation & Governance (UK); International Relations (UK); Technology in Society (USA); Energy; Politics and Society (USA); Journal of International Relations & Development; Asian Survey (USA); Policy, Organization & Society (Australia), Global Society: Journal of Interdisciplinary International Relations (UK); Contemporary Politics (UK); The Australian Journal of International Affairs, as well as authored a series of invited papers.

Professor Jarvis serves as the co-editor of Policy & Society: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Policy Research, co-editor of the series Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy (Palgrave), and is the recipient of various grants from the Australia Research Council, Ministry of Education in Singapore, and the Rockefeller Foundation, New York.

Born in the United Kingdom, Professor Jarvis was educated in Australia and Canada where he received his doctorate in 1996 from the University of British Columbia. He holds Australian, Canadian and British citizenships.

 

July 09 (Tuesday)

Lecture 05 Gender and Development in Asia
(Dr. NG Fung Sheung Isabella, Lecturer, Department of Asian and Policy Studies, HKIEd)

Introduction to Speaker

BA MPhil (Hong Kong Baptist University)
MA (University College London)
PhD (School of Oriental and African Studies, UK)

Isabella completed her doctoral studies in Gender Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. She obtained her MPhil in Journalism from the Hong Kong Baptist University and her MA in Comparative Literature from University College London. Before joining the Department of Asian and Policy Studies Isabella taught at the University of Macau and the Community College of City University, Hong Kong.

Isabella’s research interests focus on gender studies including gender in development (GAD), women in development (WID), the anthropology of migration, ethnicity and identity, and media. Isabella’s recent research has addressed ethnographic identities in rural village communities in Hong Kong, where she has explored gender relations, migration, and identity and its manifestations on village life. Isabella’s most recent research project is exploring contemporary motherhood in South China and the greater China region.

Before pursing her doctoral studies, Isabella worked as a full-time journalist for Time Magazine, based in Hong Kong. In this role, Isabella travelled extensively to cover the Greater China region and the overseas Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia. She also wrote for the Post Magazine of South China Morning Post, the Far East Economic Review and the Hong Kong Tatler. Isabella has worked on major news stories including the Hong Kong and Macau handover, the Taiwan election in 2000; the Bali Bombing, the Indonesian ethnic Chinese pogrom between 1997 and 1999; and an exclusive feature story on the infamous Macau dragonhead Broken Tooth Kui.

Synopsis
The purpose of this seminar is to familiarize students with the main analytic debates on the field of gender and development from different perspectives and relate these debates especially on Asia. Four institutional domains (households, family and kinship, the market, the community and the state) through which gender relations are both defined and transformed receive separate attention. Students will be introduced to the patriarchal structures of society that have shaped and categorized gender roles and status, through a range of psychological and sociological discourses, including Politics, Literature, the Media, Religion, Race and Medicine.  An introductory survey of conceptual approaches to gender is followed by a treatment of central topics which include: the move from WID (women in development) to GAD (gender and development) as critical perspectives in development studies, conceptual approaches to households, men and masculinities in development, globalization and women’s employment, gender, state and governance, women’s movements and state-civil society relations, gender, conflict and post-conflict, and finally an appraisal of prospects for gender-aware planning and empowerment, through studying cases across Asia.

Readings
Agarwal, B. 1997 “’Bargaining’ and Gender Relations: Within and Beyond the Household” in Feminist Economics v.3 (1).

An Evaluation of World Bank Support 2002-2008 Gender and Development. IEG World Bank. http://lnweb90.worldbank.org/oed/oeddoclib.nsf/DocUNIDViewForJavaSearch/8261F8EF254CE537852576C0005B3ADD/$file/Gender_eval.pdf

Cleaver, Frances. 2002. “Men and Masculinities: New Directions in Gender and Development”, in Francis Cleaver (ed). Masculinities Matter! Men, Gender and Development. London: Zed Books.

Hannum, E. 2005. Market Transition, Education Disparities and Family Strategies in Rural China. Demography. 42(2) 275-299.

Pradeep, Panda and Bina Agarwal 2005 “Marital Violence, Human Development and Women’s Property Status in India” in World Development v.3 (5).

Rathgeber, E.1998. WID, WAD, GAD: TRENDS IN RESEARCH AND PRACTICE Ottawa: International Development Centre.

Walby, S. 2009. Globalisation and Inequatlites, “Introduction: Progress and Modernities”, Los Angeles: Sage.

Research Areas

Gender Studies, including Gender and Development (GAD) and Women in Development (WID)
Anthropology of migration
Ethnicity and identity
Walled villages in Hong Kong
Area focus:
Greater China

Courses Taught

SSC2183: Introduction to Communication
SSC2190: Cross-cultural Communication
CUM3002: Comparative Curriculum and Pedagogy Studies
SSC2184: Communication Studies in the Public and Education Sectors
SSC3203: Media Politics and Power