Introductory description

N/A

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

1. Introduction and context
2. Latin America’s ‘development gap’
3. Explaining the gap 1: Colonial legacies
4. Explaining the gap 2: External factors
5. Explaining the gap 3: State policies
6. Reading week
7. Latin American Politics Today
8. Historical legacies and state-building
9. Caudillos, populists, and generals
10. From “third wave” to “pink tide”

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Understand broad trends in Latin American political and economic history
• Assess the differences in the political and economic trajectories of states within Latin America
• Have developed in-depth knowledge of at least two countries in the region through independent research
• Have improved their research and writing skills

Indicative reading list

Thorp, Rosemary. Progress, Poverty, and Exclusion: An Economic History of Latin America in the
20th Century. New York: Inter-American Development Bank, 1998
Wiarda, Howard J., and Harvey F. Kline, eds. Latin American Politics and Development, 8th ed.
Boulder: Westview Press, 2014
UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Preliminary Overview of
the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2015
Fukuyama, Francis, ed. Falling Behind: Explaining the Development Gap between Latin America
and the United States. Oxford University Press, 2008
Mahoney, James. Colonialism and Postcolonial Development: Spanish America in Comparative
Perspective. Cambridge University Press, 2010
Flores-Macías, Gustavo A. After neoliberalism?: The Left and Economic Reforms in Latin America.
Oxford University Press, 2012
Jorge I. Dominguez and Michael Shifter, eds., Constructing Democratic Governance in Latin
America, 4th ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013.
Pérez-Liñán, Aníbal, and Scott Mainwaring. "Regime legacies and levels of democracy: Evidence
from Latin America." Comparative Politics 45.4 (2013): 379-397.
Weyland, Kurt. "The threat from the populist left." Journal of Democracy 24.3 (2013): 18-32
Gallagher, Kevin P. The China triangle: Latin America's China boom and the fate of the
Washington consensus. Oxford University Press, 2016.
Lustig, Nora, Luis F. Lopez-Calva, and Eduardo Ortiz-Juarez. "Declining inequality in Latin America
in the 2000s: the cases of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico." World Development 44 (2013): 129-141.
Carreras, Miguel, “The Rise of Outsiders in Latin America, 1980-2010,” Comparative Political
Studies, 2012
Hagopian, Frances and Scott P. Mainwaring. 2005. The Third Wave of Democratization in Latin
America. Advances and Setbacks. Cambridge University Press.

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Subject specific skills

TBC

Transferable skills

TBC