Politics 140C: Latin American Politics Summer 2017, Session 2 July 31-September 1 Tuesdays & Thursdays 1:00-4:30 p.m., Soc. Sci. 2 room 167 Instructor: Michael Wilson Becerril, miswilso@ucsc.edu Office Hours: Wednesdays at noon, or by appointment Course Description Since the end of colonialism, Latin American countries have experienced rapid political changes. This course studies some of this dynamic region s most important shifts from independence, the legacies of colonialism, and the challenges of state formation, to the onset of authoritarian and revolutionary regimes, the return to liberal democracy, the adoption (and rejection) of market reforms, and the rise of new social movements led by youth, femmes, and indigenous peoples. By studying patterns of continuity and change across cases, we will gain a strong grasp of the region s history as well as its ongoing challenges namely, severe inequality, poverty, and violence. 1 Learning Objectives The course is designed to ensure students meet the following central goals: Gain a solid understanding of Latin American politics and the challenges of deepening democracy that the region has faced historically and faces contemporarily. By the end of the course, students should be able to accurately describe the chronology and import of key political developments in Latin America. In addition to understanding these broad patterns, students will also develop a complex view of the region s heterogeneity and distinctive features (histories, institutions, societies, cultures, economies, and so on). Develop the conceptual tools and theoretical knowledge to better understand political phenomena in the region and beyond. Latin America presents an ideal scenario to study and explain the causes and consequences of global phenomena such as democratization, military coups, market reform, social movements, and participatory budgeting. Improve your writing and the accompanying skills that it requires, such as thinking critically, analyzing methodically, and arguing persuasively. Writing skills are at a premium today. Cultivating your ability to make compelling and convincing arguments, and to write papers that are well organized and supported with empirical evidence, will be immensely valuable for you well beyond this course. 1 This is a summer adaptation of a syllabus developed by professor Kent Eaton (Professor of Politics, UCSC). 1
Student Rights and Responsibilities Attendance and late submissions: Attendance is mandatory, as are your active listening and participation. Because we only have 10 lectures, your absence from one means that you have missed 10% of the course, and your grade will reflect that: each unexcused absence will drop your maximum grade by 10%. Arriving late will also hurt your participation grade, so please plan accordingly and always arrive on time. Your grade for any work submitted after its deadline will drop by one letter for each day it is late. Electronic devices etiquette: You are required to keep hand-written notes, and no devices will be tolerated in class. Accommodations: Students who qualify for disability accommodations should register with the campus Disability Resource Center and submit their Accommodation Authorization Letter to me in person, at office hours of via appointment, by the end of the second week of the quarter. Contact the DRC for more information via phone: 831-459-2089, or email: drc@ucsc.edu. Academic integrity: All students enrolled at UCSC are expected to read, and must abide by, the student code of ethics. I encourage you to review the policies on issues like academic honesty and misconduct (available here: http://deanofstudents.ucsc.edu/pdf/santa-cruz-campus-code-of-student-conduct.pdf). Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses and not worth the risk. Your work for this course must be original, i.e., your own and not previously created or submitted for different courses. You may borrow others ideas as long as you follow proper attribution. Feel free to ask me about these expectations. Citation styles: Proper attribution of all borrowed ideas and information, in a consistent style, is crucial to academic honesty. The Politics department accepts either of two formats: MLA in-text citation or Chicago Style footnote citations. Please familiarize yourself with these two style guides, which can be found on the Politics department website at: http://politics.ucsc.edu/undergraduate/citation.php. Course materials: One for-purchase text: Daniel C. Hellinger s Comparative Politics of Latin America (Taylor and Francis, 2011; from here on, CPLA ). All other course readings will be made available via Canvas. Grading System: We will use this rubric to evaluate your progress in the course. Please familiarize yourself with it. A = 92-100 Reserved for original, flawless, and above-the-mark work B = 80-91 Good-to-great work, despite minor flaws or errors C = 70-79 Satisfactory but significantly flawed work D = 60-69 Demonstrates dismal effort and contains too many errors F = 0-59 Incomplete, plagiarized, or no work submitted 2
Requirements and Grade Distribution Participation (20%) Students must attend all meetings and are expected to be active participants in our discussions. This course relies on our collective learning, so you must be attentive and prepared to contribute to our conversations. It is therefore mandatory to complete all assigned readings by their respective dates, and to attend meetings ready to discuss them (see the detailed week-by-week schedule below). Weekly Quizzes (4% each, 20% total) We will start our second meeting of each week with a short quiz, beginning on the first week of class. These brief exercises are not difficult, but they are designed to test your reading comprehension. You will not succeed in these by relying only on lecture notes, so you must do the readings. On the other hand, if you stay up to date with your readings, writing these quizzes will be a walk in the park. Research Project (30%) You will prepare a research essay in stages, with guidance from the instructor and TA. Précis and annotated bibliography (due in class on Tuesday of week 3, Aug. 15) First draft of the paper (due in class on Thursday of week 4, Aug. 24) Final essay (due for upload to Canvas at 11:59 p.m. on September 3) Final exam (30%) The final exam will be cumulative, will require you to think across themes and cases, and will ensure that you have gained a strong grasp of the material covered in class. Additional Resources: You are expected to keep up with current events about the region, and I encourage you to bring these to my attention during our class discussions or via email. Please explore the following sources at least once, and subsequently use them to stay up to date on Latin America during and after the course. News briefings: The Pan American Post, Latin America News Dispatch, Latin America Daily Briefing, El País, La Jornada, O Globo, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, BBC, The Economist, and The New York Times. Critical and in-depth coverage: Latin American Research Review, North American Congress on Latin America, Latin American Perspectives, Latin American Network Info Center, Americas Quarterly, and Upside Down World. Research organizations: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales, Latin American Studies Association, Washington Office on Latin America, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Insight Crime, and the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. 3
Weekly Schedule Week 1: Colonialism, Independence, and Development Meeting 1 (August 1): Course introduction; colonialism, revolution, and independence Introduction, Chapter 3, and Chapter 5 of CPLA, pp. 1-10, 67-92, and 119-139. Gabriel García Márquez, Cien Años de Soledad [One Hundred Years of Solitude] (any edition). Meeting 2 (August 3): Theories of development Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent (Monthly Review Press, 1973), pp. 21-49. Lawrence Harrison, Underdevelopment is a State of Mind: The Latin American Case (Madison Books, 1985), pp. 35-56. Week 2: Industrialization, State Formation, and Authoritarianism Meeting 3 (August 8): Industrialization, populism, and corporatism Chapter 6 of CPLA, pp. 140-167. Marysa Navarro, Evita s Charismatic Leadership, in Michael Connif, ed., Populism in Latin America (University of Alabama Press, 1999), pp. 47-64. Corporatism: A Latin American Way of Politics? in CPLA, pp. 39-42. Meeting 4 (August 10): Military coups and authoritarian regimes David Collier, ed., The New Authoritarianism in Latin America (Princeton University Press, 1979), pp. 19-32. Mala Htun, Reforming Women s Rights Under Military Dictatorships, in Sex and the State: Abortion, Divorce and the Family Under Latin American Dictatorships and Democracies (Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 58-77. Jacobo Timerman, Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number (Knopf, 1981), pp. 3-31. Chapter 7 of CPLA, pp. 171-206. Alfred Stepan, The New Professionalism of Internal Warfare and Military Role Expansion, in Stepan, ed., Authoritarian Brazil (Yale U. Press, 1973), pp. 47-65. Horacio Verbitsky, The Flight: Confessions of an Argentine Dirty Warrior (The New Press, 1996), pp. 3-10. 4
Week 3: Revolution and Democratization Meeting 5 (August 15): Revolutionary movements and governments Chapters 11 and 12 in CPLA, pp. 283-338. Margaret Randall, Sandino s Daughters: Testimonies of Nicaraguan Women in Struggle (New Star Books, 1981), p. iii-39. Meeting 6 (August 17): Democratization, liberalization, and decentralization Guillermo O Donnell, Transitions to Democracy: Some Navigation Instruments, in Robert Pastor, ed., Democracy in the Americas: Stopping the Pendulum (New York: Holmes Meier, 1992), pp. 62-75. Javier Corrales, Market Reforms, in Jorge Domínguez and Michael Shifter, eds., Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin America (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), pp. 74-99. Alfred Montero and David Samuels, The Political Determinants of Decentralization in Latin America: Causes and Consequences, in Montero and Samuels, eds., Decentralization and Democracy in Latin America (University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), pp. 3-32. Chapter 8 in CPLA, pp. 207-229. Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan, Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), pp. 3-15. Edward Gibson, Boundary Control: Subnational Authoritarianism in Democratic Countries, World Politics 58 (1) 2005: 101-132. Week 4: Institutions and Social Movements Meeting 7 (August 22): Presidentialism, parties, electoral rules, and clientelism Valeria Brusco, Marcelo Nazareno, and Susan Stokes, Vote Buying in Argentina, Latin American Research Review 39 (2) 2004: 66-88. Chapter 16 in CPLA, pp. 421-450. Short section on clientelism in CPLA, pp. 50-53. Juan Linz, The Failure of Presidential Democracy: The Case of Latin America (Johns Hopkins University, 1994), pp. 3-22. John Carey, Presidentialism and Representative Institutions, in Jorge Dominguez and Michael Shifter, eds., Constructing Democratic Governance (2003), pp. 11-42. 5
Meeting 8 (August 24): Social movements, the left turn, and elite responses Sonia Alvarez, Engendering Democracy in Brazil: Women s Movements in Transition Politics (Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 37-56. Xavier Albó, Ethnic Identity and Politics in the Central Andes, in Jo-Marie Burt and Philip Mauceri, Politics in the Andes: Identity, Conflict, Reform (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), pp. 17-37. Kent Eaton, Conservative Autonomy Movements: Territorial Dimensions of Ideological Conflict in Bolivia and Ecuador, Comparative Politics 43 (3) 2011: 291-310. Chapter 14 in CPLA, pp. 365-385. Gabriel Ondetti, Repression, Opportunity and Protest: Explaining the Take-off of Brazil s Landless Movement, Latin American Politics and Society 48 (2) 2006: 61-94. Jorge Castañeda, Latin America s Left Turn, Foreign Affairs, May/June 2006: 28-43. Steven Levitsky and Kenneth Roberts, eds., The Resurgence of the Latin American Left (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011), pp. 1-28. Week 5: Ongoing Challenges and Promising Currents Meeting 9 (August 29): Authoritarian legacies, organized crime, and drug cartels Anthony Pereira and Mark Ungar, The Persistence of the Mano Dura: Authoritarian Legacies and Policing in Brazil and the Southern Cone, in Katherine Hite and Paola Cesarini, eds., Authoritarian Legacies and Democracy in Latin America and Southern Europe (University of Notre Dame Press, 2004), pp. 263-296. Laurie Freeman and Jorge Luis Sierra, Mexico: The Militarization Trap, in Coletta Youngers and Eileen Rosin, eds., Drugs and Democracy in Latin America (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), pp. 263-302. Consuelo Cruz and Rut Diamint, The New Military Autonomy in Latin America, Journal of Democracy 9 (4) 1998: 115-127. Meeting 10 (August 31): Radical and participatory democracy? Brian Wampler and Leonardo Avritzer, Participatory Publics: Civil Society and New Institutions in Democratic Brazil, Comparative Politics 36 (3): 291-312. Donna Van Cott, Radical Democracy in the Andes (Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 1-33. Chapters 17, 18, and 19 in CPLA, pp. 451-473, 477-513 (especially 512-513, the short section on democracy outside of the state), and 514-550. 6