Political and Social Change

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)