Latin American Politics

Units

1. 1

   Colonial legacies and independence

   3 lessons

   1. Spanish and Portuguese colonial ruleLocate the Spanish viceroyalties and Portuguese Brazil in 1780, explain how encomienda and mita organized forced indigenous labor, and assess Engerman and Sokoloff's argument that unequal factor endowments entrenched inequality in Latin America.
   2. Independence 1808 to 1825Explain how Napoleon's invasion of Iberia in 1807 and 1808 set off the independence of Spanish and Portuguese America, follow Bolivar's and San Martin's armies on a map, place Haiti's 1804 revolution before them, and say what the new republics inherited.
   3. Caudillos and the export boomExplain why the new republics fell into caudillo rule after independence, describe the export boom of coffee, beef, nitrates and guano after about 1850, and read what it did to the shape of Latin American economies.
2. 2

   Import substitution and populism

   3 lessons

   1. The Depression and import substitutionExplain how the 1929 crash broke the export model, how Raul Prebisch and ECLAC's center-periphery theory justified tariff-protected industrialization, and read the rise of manufacturing in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico from 1930 to 1970.
   2. Vargas, Perón and CárdenasExplain how Getulio Vargas, Juan and Eva Peron and Lazaro Cardenas incorporated workers into the state through corporatist institutions, compare the three on a timeline, and say why scholars call them classic populists.
   3. Limits of ISI and the debt crisisExplain why import substitution ran into a foreign exchange limit, how petrodollar borrowing in the 1970s postponed it, how Mexico's August 1982 default set off a regional crisis, and what the lost decade of the 1980s did to economies and politics.
3. 3

   Coups and bureaucratic authoritarianism

   3 lessons

   1. O'Donnell's bureaucratic authoritarianismState Guillermo O'Donnell's argument that the exhaustion of easy import substitution produced a new kind of military regime in Brazil in 1964 and Argentina in 1966, distinguish it from older coups, place the Southern Cone coups on a timeline and map, and weigh the critiques.
   2. Chile 1973 and PinochetNarrate Salvador Allende's 1970 election and the Popular Unity years, the 11 September 1973 coup and Pinochet's repression, and assess the Chicago Boys' market reforms using the record of Chilean growth and inequality.
   3. Argentina's dirty war and Operation CondorExplain how the 1976 junta used state terror, the disappearances, to destroy its opponents, how the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo challenged it, and how Operation Condor linked the Southern Cone's intelligence services across borders.
4. 4

   Revolution

   3 lessons

   1. The Cuban RevolutionExplain how Fidel Castro's guerrillas defeated Batista and took power in January 1959, why the revolution turned socialist and clashed with the United States, and how the Bay of Pigs invasion of April 1961 and the missile crisis of October 1962 secured the regime and shaped the Cold War in the Americas.
   2. Nicaragua: Sandinistas and ContrasExplain how the Somoza dynasty fell to the Sandinista revolution of July 1979, how the Contra war supported by the United States and the Iran-Contra affair shaped the 1980s, and how the 1990 election peacefully ended Sandinista rule.
   3. Guatemala and El SalvadorExplain the 1954 CIA-backed coup against Guatemala's Jacobo Arbenz and its link to the United Fruit Company, the Salvadoran civil war of 1980 to 1992 and the 1992 peace accords, and compare the human costs and the postwar settlements of the two countries on a map of Central America.
5. 5

   Transitions to democracy

   3 lessons

   1. The third wave in Latin AmericaExplain Huntington's third wave and place Latin America's transitions from military rule in order from Ecuador in 1979 to Chile in 1990, identify the common causes of the transitions, and weigh what kind of democracy resulted.
   2. Transitions by pact and by collapseExplain O'Donnell and Schmitter's account of transitions from authoritarian rule, with hardliners and softliners and the role of pacts, and contrast the negotiated transition in Chile, through the plebiscite of 1988, with the collapse of Argentina's junta after the Falklands defeat of 1982.
   3. Truth, amnesty and justiceExplain the tools of transitional justice (truth commissions, trials, amnesties and reparations), compare Argentina's Nunca Mas and trials of the juntas, Chile's Rettig Commission and Brazil's 1979 amnesty, and weigh the trade-offs between justice and stability.
6. 6

   Mexico: the PRI and its fall

   3 lessons

   1. Revolution and PRI hegemonyExplain how Mexico's revolution of 1910 led to the party founded by Plutarco Elias Calles in 1929, how Lazaro Cardenas built its corporatist structure of labor, peasant and popular sectors, and how presidentialism and non-competitive elections sustained one-party rule for seven decades.
   2. Cracks in the systemExplain how the PRI's hegemony weakened through the Tlatelolco massacre of 1968, the debt crisis of 1982, the contested election of 1988, and the NAFTA and Zapatista events of 1994, and read the decline of the PRI's presidential vote from 1982 to 1994.
   3. Electoral reform and alternationExplain how the electoral reforms that built the IFE let opposition parties win states and then the presidency in 2000, read the results of the presidential elections from 2000 to 2018, and describe the PRI's return in 2012 and the rise of Morena in 2018.
7. 7

   The left turn and inequality

   3 lessons

   1. The pink tideExplain the wave of left-of-centre governments elected in Latin America from Hugo Chavez in 1998 and Lula in 2002 to Morales, Correa and others by 2008, distinguish the moderate from the radical left, and weigh the causes of the turn.
   2. Inequality and redistributionExplain how conditional cash transfers such as Bolsa Familia worked, read the fall in inequality and poverty in Latin America in the 2000s, and weigh the role of the commodity boom, labour-market gains and social policy, and the risks when prices fell.
   3. Venezuela and democratic backslidingExplain how Hugo Chavez won power in 1998 and how his government and Maduro's weakened democratic checks, read the link between the oil price and the economic collapse, and read a map of Venezuelan emigration, weighing explanations of the crisis.
8. 8

   Crime, drugs and the United States

   3 lessons

   1. Crime and violenceLocate the countries of the Northern Triangle on a map, read the homicide rates that make Latin America the most violent region outside war zones, explain the roles of gangs, weak policing and impunity, and weigh the hard-line policy of El Salvador's state of exception.
   2. The drug tradeTrace the cocaine route from the Andean coca fields through Colombia and Mexico to the United States, explain the Medellin cartel, Plan Colombia from 2000 and Calderon's offensive in Mexico from 2006, and read the changes in coca area and Mexican homicides, weighing the effects of prohibition and the balloon effect.
   3. The United States and Latin AmericaTrace US policy toward Latin America from the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and the Roosevelt Corollary through the Good Neighbor policy, Cold War interventions and the Washington Consensus to the rise of China as a rival trading partner, and weigh the effects on the region's politics.