COURSE SYLLABUS: POLITICAL AND SOCIAL CHANGE

Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Partner Institution: University of Belgrano

Course Title: Political and Social Change

Sessions Offered: Fall Semester, Spring Semester

Instructional in: English

Prerequisites: None

Classroom Contact Hours: 45 contact hours

College Credit (Semester Credit Hours): 3 credit hours

College Credit (Quarter Units): 4 quarter units

Local Department: Program in Argentine and Latine American Studies (PALAS)

Course Number: PALAS 360        

Course Description

This course focuses on national identity in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico and Venezuela resulting from political and social change. Students are encouraged to understand the political systems and parties in each country from a historical perspective. Present-day social actors and protest movements are similarly contextualized within ongoing struggles between the state and various forces in society. The course also considers collective memories of the repression inflicted by successive military dictatorships in some of these countries and the role of citizenship and institutions in contemporary democracies.

Course Content

Unit 1: The political system of a new society (1810-1920)

Course Syllabus Page 2

The crisis of the Spanish Colonial Empire, the Spanish heritage, and the formation of the new republics. The emergence of new regional political units: Caudillos, regional differences, ethnic groups, and the formation of a new society in the oligarchic republics. Modernization, urbanization, and democratization: European immigration, new ideologies and political parties, emerging social actors, and a modern identity.

Unit 2: Populism (1920-1970)

Local transformations within the impact of the international cyclical crises. The emergence of Populism: organized labor, imports substitution, Nationalism, and the State; the new middle classes. Peronismo, Varguismo, Ibañismo, and Cardenismo. Ideological dynamics within Populism: Revolution or Reform?

Unit 3: Bureaucratic Authoritarianism Limits to the social transformation within the context of the Cold War. Crisis in the industrialist alliance: military intervention, social repression, and the search for sustainable growth. The Doctrine of National Security: military intervention, foreign influence, and movements of resistance. Wars of national/ popular liberation.

Unit 4: The process of Redemocratization

New power relations in the emerging democracies through the structural transformation of globalization. The human rights movement and the heritage of State terrorism. The search for sustainable development. The new agenda: ecology, regional migration, drugs and money laundering, social polarization and exclusion

Course Schedule

Week 1/ Unit 1

Introduction: Toward new political relations in the post-independence period, 1800-1824

Lecture session:

Thomas Skidmore and Peter H. Smith, Modern Latin America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989) Chapters 3, 4, 5

Discussion session:

Bradford Burns, Latin America: Conflict and Creation (L.A.: Univ. of Cal Press, 1983)

Chapter 2, p. 34-41

Week 2 / Unit 1

The Origins of a Latin American ideological field, 1820-1870

Lecture session:

Bradford Burns, The Poverty of Progress (Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 1980)

Chapters 1, 2

Discussion session:

John Charles Chasteen and Joseph S. Tulchin (eds.), Problems in Modern Latin American History: A Reader (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1994)

Chapter 2, p. 37-41, 48-55

Course Syllabus Page 3

Week 3/ Unit 1

Politics and society in the neocolonial order, 1870-1910

Lecture session:

Bradford Burns, The Poverty of Progress Chapters 5, 6, 7

Discussion session:

Bradford Burns, Latin America: Conflict and Creation Chapter 4, p. 76-97

Week 4 / Unit 1

Political and social transformations of the new century, 1870-1910

Lecture session:

Leslie Bethell (ed.), Ideas and Ideologies in Twentieth Century Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) Chapter 2

Discussion session:

Bradford Burns, Latin America: Conflict and Creation Chapter 5, p. 106-129

Week 5

Evaluation I: Report due

Unit 2

Populism, 1910-1960

Lecture session:

Marjorie Becker, “Black and White and Color: Cardenismo and the Search for a Campesino Ideology,” Comparative Studies in Society & Hist 29 (3) 1987, p. 453-65

Discussion session:

Bradford Burns, Latin America: Conflict and Creation Chapter 7, p. 207-288

Week 6/ Unit 2

Populism, 1910-1960

Lecture session:

Daniel James, Resistance and Integration (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press 1988)

Introduction

Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Teory (London: At. Highlands, 1977)

Chapter 4

Discussion session:

Ian Roxborough, “Populism and Class Conflict,” E. Archetti, Sociology of Developing Societies (London: Macmillan, 1987) Pp. 119-123

Steve Stein, “Populism and Social Control,” E. Archetti, Sociology of Developing Societies (London: Macmillan, 1987) Pp. 123-135

Week 7 / Unit 2

Populism, 1910-1960

Lecture session:

John D. French, The Brazilian Workers’ ABC (Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1992) Introduction, Conclusion

Discussion session:

Course Syllabus Page 4

John Charles Chasteen and Joseph S. Tulchin (eds.), Problems in Modern Latin American History: A Reader (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1994)

Chapter 4, p. 97-123

Week 8

Review Midterm

Evaluation II: Midterm exam

Week 9 / Unit 3

Modernization and Authoritarianism, 1960-1990

Lecture session:

David Collier, The New Authoritarianism in Latin America Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979) Chapters 1, 2

Discussion session:

Joe Foweraker, Todd Landman, and Neil Harvey, Governing Latin America Chapters 1, 2, 3

Week 10 / Unit 3

Modernización y Autoritarismo, 1960-1990

Modernization and Authoritarianism, 1960-1990

Lecture session:

Peter Calvert and Susan Calvert, “The Military and Development,” Linda Alexander Rodriguez (ed.), Rank and Privilege (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1994) Pp. 155-188

Discussion session:

Joe Foweraker, Todd Landman, and Neil Harvey, Governing Latin America Chapters 5, 6, 8, 9

Week 11/ Unit 3

Modernización y Autoritarismo, 1960-1990

Modernization and Authoritarianism, 1960-1990

Lecture session:

Gabriel Marcella, “The Latin American Military, Low-Intensity Conflict, and

Democracy,” Linda Alexander Rodriguez (ed.), Rank and Privilege (Wilmington:

Scholarly Resources, 1994) Pp. 189-219

Discussion session:

William Ackroyd, “Military Professionalism and Non-Intervention in Mexico,” Linda Alexander Rodriguez (ed.), Rank and Privilege (Wilmington: Sch. Resources, 1994) Pp. 219-234

Week 12/ Unit 4

Redemocratization, 1980-

Lecture session:

Alfred Stepan (ed.), Redemocratizing Brazil New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989) Chapter 1, 9

Discussion session:

Course Syllabus Page 5

Philip Oxhorn, “Social inequality, civil society, and the limits of citizenship in Latin America,” Monograph

Week 13 / Unit 4

Redemocratization, 1980-

Paper projects discussion

Lecture session:

John Walton, “Debt, Protest and the State in Latin America,” Monograph

Discussion session:

Sergio Serulnikov, “When Looting Becomes a Right: Urban Poverty and Food Riots in Argentina,” Monograph

Week 14 / Unit 4

Redemocratization, 1980-

Paper due date

General review

Week 15

Evaluation III: Final exam

Bibliography

Duke University Press, The Argentina Reader

The Brazil Reader

The Peru Reader

The Mexico Reader

The Cuba Reader

John Ch. Chasteen, Born in Blood and Fire (Norton: New York, 2001)

Tulio Halperín Donghi, Contemporary History of Latin America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)

Demetrio Boesner, Relaciones Internacionales de América Latina (Caracas: N.Sociedad, 1987)

Fernando Enrique Cardoso y Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979)

Eduardo Galeano, Las venas abiertas de América Latina (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1973)

Course Requirements

Following the UB policy, students need a minimum of 75% of attendance to be in good standing for the final exam. The teaching process, through theoretical and practical activities, seeks to stimulate active and reflexive, individual and group participation through critical reading. There are no make ups for classes falling on public holidays. UB holds to the view that plagiarism constitutes intellectual theft and is a serious breach of acceptable conduct. Any student caught plagiarizing will immediately be given a “no credit” for all courses taken in the semester.

Course Evaluation

• In-class participation: 10%
• Assignments: 20%
• Written midterm exam: 30%
• Short Paper: 20%
• Final oral exam: 20%

Bibliography (Text and Materials)

Required Textbooks:

• Course Reader. Claudio Chiaramonte, ed.

Contact Information:

SOL EDUCATION ABROAD

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