Advanced

Prior to enrolling in courses at this language level, students must have completed or tested out of a minimum of four semesters (or six quarters) of college-level Spanish at their home university in the U.S.

The study of the origins and evolution of the contemporary political and social movements in Europe and America. Candidates and platforms and their influence in institutional and economic development and in political action.

1. Objectives

For the students to receive a formation that will permit them to draw conclusions and criteria both in favor of and against what is read, and to integrate in the area of participation, spectator with his/her work, in such a way that would permit them to understand contemporary social and political movements.
To integrate the diachronic point of view from history and those things with which it interrelates: structure, conjuncture, and events.
To apply a systematized set of concepts, models, and instruments particular to political science, that will make it possible for them to carry out analysis of historic facts.

2. Contents

Thematic Units

1. Theoretical framework

Modernity, modernisms, and modernization. Conceptual definition. Perspectives and paradigms. Society as a system of domination: social structure, classes, and participation. State, civil society, and political society. Perspectives. Political participation: models, mobilization, Praetorianism, and political culture. Groups, parties. Movements, subcultures, and new social movements.

2. The Formation of Modern Regimes

The liberal way. The two revolutions. From repression of dangerous classes to democracy of the masses. Nationalisms. Imperialism. Reactionary modernisms.

3. Modernity and Modernization in Asia and Africa

Decolonization and the impact of modernization. Specificity of the postcolonial state. Historical experiences in the formation of the state. The state as a sign of progress. Revolution and modernization. Modernization and westernization. The state, regions, and ethnic space in Asia. Historical identity and the nation-state. Modern national movements.

4. Modernity and Modernization in Latin America

Formation and consolidation of the state in Latin America. Populism: Populist movements in Latin America. The populist state. The political order in societies in change: authoritarianism and democracy. Dependent capitalism.

5. From the Bipolar Order to Globalization

Capitalism and democracy: The post-War Social Democratic pact. Keynesianism and the welfare state. Crisis in the 1970's. The exhausting of the post-War Social Democratic model. Collapse of the revolutionary paradigm with the reform of Gorbadchev. The left and new social movements.

6. Integrated World Capitalism. Modernity at the Turn of the Century

Capitalism in the closing stage. Internationalization of domestic life. Globalization. Social stratification. Democracy and the market.
Emergent democracies in Latin America. Democracy after Communism. Liberalization and democratization in Eastern Europe.

Teaching Methodology

The teaching methodology fundamentally consists of the study and analysis of cases of diverse political and social movements, occurring over the course of the 20th century; as well as the oral exposition done by the students during the class. They will select cases under the supervision of the teacher, utilizing the theoretical framework as it has been developed.

5. Criteria of Evaluation

Criteria will be based on the norms established by the University of Belgrano for partial and final exams.