Political and Social Change

Universidad de Belgrano

Course Description

  • Course Name

    Political and Social Change

  • Host University

    Universidad de Belgrano

  • Location

    Buenos Aires, Argentina

  • Area of Study

    History, International Relations, International Studies, Latin American Studies, Political Science, Sociology

  • Language Level

    Taught In English

  • Course Level Recommendations

    Upper

    ISA offers course level recommendations in an effort to facilitate the determination of course levels by credential evaluators.We advice each institution to have their own credentials evaluator make the final decision regrading course levels.

    Hours & Credits

  • Recommended U.S. Semester Credits
    4
  • Recommended U.S. Quarter Units
    6
  • Overview

    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.

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    Course Syllabus

    (PALAS 360) Political and Social Change

    Professor Dr. Claudio González Chiaramonte

    Programa de Estudios Argentinos y Latinoamericanos
    Universidad de Belgrano

    Course Syllabus 2010

    Course Information
    Monday- Wednesday 10:00-11:30 (C9)

    Taught in English

    Contact Information
    claudioggch@hotmail.com

    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 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 is 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.

    Grading Policy

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

    For a better understanding of the comparable table for grading: check the student
    handbook (page 9) in orientation kit packet.

    Required Textbooks

    Course Reader. Claudio Chiaramonte, ed.
    Course Content
    Unit 1: The political system of a new society (1810-1920)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

    Calendario Académico / Academic Calendar

    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
    Semana 5/ 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
    Scieties (London: Macmillan, 1987) Pp. 119-123
    Steve Stein, ?Populism and Social Control,? E. Archetti, Sociology of Developing
    Scieties (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

    Semana 10/ Week 10
    Unidad 3/ 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)

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Courses and course hours of instruction are subject to change.

Eligibility for courses may be subject to a placement exam and/or pre-requisites.

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