Department of Political Science, E53-435
Phone: 253-3138
Email: schaffer@mit.edu
Office Hours: TBA
Professor Chappell Lawson
Phone: 253-3524
Email: clawson@mit.edu
Office Hours: 11:00 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wednesday
Political Science 17.577
The Politics of Change in the Third World
Fall 2000
Course Description
Recent years have seen an astonishing spread of democracy to many African, Asian, and Latin American countries. What caused these dramatic political transitions? What challenges do democratizing countries in the Third World face? Will these new democracies endure? We will take up these questions using film, fiction, and popular journalism, as well as scholarly research. We will also focus on a small number of countries (Brazil, Mexico, Sri Lanka, India, Singapore, Senegal, and Nigeria) in order to explore in greater depth some of the most important political challenges faced by developing countries.
Requirements
There are no prerequisites for this class. Students must attend weekly class meetings, do all the required readings (approximately 100 pages per week), and actively participate in class discussions. In addition to the regular class meetings, students will meet one hour per week for a recitation with the teaching assistant. Participation in recitation is essential, and will be counted toward your overall participation grade. The following are also required of all students:
* Class participation.
Please note that we take the class participation component of this course seriously. If you must miss a class, you must notify the instructors in advance. More than one unexcused absence will obviously jeopardize your class participation grade. Also, you must notify us at the beginning of the class if, for whatever reason, you are unprepared to participate in class discussion that day. Again, more than one unexcused “unprepared” will jeopardize your class participation grade.
* Preparation for and active participation in current events discussions.
We will set aside a block of time in Weeks 7 and 13 to discuss current events in the Third World. One week prior to each discussion, each student will copy and distribute an article relating to either: 1) themes discussed in class, 2) countries discussed in class, or 3) important political developments anywhere in the Third World. To ensure that several students do not choose the same article, you will email everyone in the class to "reserve" your article. Please take care to select articles that you anticipate will raise important issues for or generate interest among your classmates. Useful sources include the web sites listed at the end of the syllabus and publications like New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, and Economist magazine.
* Class debate (Week 4)
In Week 3, the class will be divided into two sides in preparation for the debate the next week. At the beginning of Week 4, we will choose at random five speakers from each side, who will make brief oral presentations of their position on the debate question. Each student’s presentation is limited to 3 minutes, and we will strictly enforce the time. A general class discussion will take place after each team has presented its position, and students not chosen to make formal presentations should direct questions to the different debaters. At the end of the debate, a vote will be taken to determine which position seemed most persuasive.
* 3 short (7 page) writing assignments.
Topics will handed out one or two weeks before the papers are due. Papers are due by 4 p.m. on the Friday after class for the week they are listed to Professor Lawson’s faculty mailbox. Papers should be typed, double-spaced, and fully referenced. Late papers will be penalized one third of a grade (e.g., from A to A-) for each day late.
* A three-hour, closed-book, comprehensive final exam.
* A map test at the beginning of the course.
Grades will be determined as follows: Map test (5%); Writing assignments (45%); final exam (30%); class participation, including current events discussion and class debate (20%).
Plagiarism Clause
When writing a paper (or an essay exam), you must identify the nature and extent of your intellectual indebtedness to the authors whom you have read or to anyone else from whom you have gotten ideas (e.g., classmates, invited lectures, etc.). You can do so through footnotes, bibliography, or some other kind of scholarly apparatus. Failure to disclose your reliance on the research or thinking of others is PLAGIARISM, which is considered to be the most serious academic offense and will be treated as such. If you have any questions about how you should document the sources of your ideas, please ask your instructors before you submit your written work. You may also wish to consult Gordon Harvey’s Writing with Sources, which will be placed on reserve with the rest of the course readings.
Important Dates
Map test: due week 2
First Paper: due week 4
Second Paper: due week 7
Third Paper: due week 12
Final Exam: TBA
Required readings (available for purchase at the MIT Coop Bookstore and held on
reserve at Dewey Library):
Chinua Achebe, A Man of the People (New York: Doubleday, 1989).
Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991).
Frederic C. Schaffer, Democracy in Translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998).
S.J. Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1991).
Recommended (if you don’t own an atlas already) and available at the MIT Coop Bookstore:
The New Comparative World Atlas (Hammond: Maplewood, 1998).
In addition, a packet of
required readings will be held on reserve at Dewey Library (E53-100) and at the
Reserve Book Room (14N-132). All
readings included in this packet are marked below with an asterisk (*).
I. Introduction: Definitions, Concepts,
and Questions
Week 1 (Date). Housekeeping
Week 2 (Date). What is the "Third World"? Does it Still Exist? What is Democracy? Democratization?
* Charles Lane, "Let’s Abolish the Third World." Newsweek April 27, 1992: 43.
* John Cruickshank, "The Rise and Fall of the Third World: A Concept Whose Time Has Passed." World Press Review 38 (February 1991): 28-29.
Samuel P. Huntington, "What?" In The Third Wave: 3-26.
* Terry Karl and Philippe C. Schmitter, "What Democracy is…and is Not," Journal of Democracy Summer 1991, 2 (3):75‑86.
* Larry Diamond, "Is the Third Wave of Democratization Over?" in Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation: 24‑63.
Week 3. Why Care about Democracy?
map test
* Robert A. Dahl, "Does Polyarchy Matter?" In Polyarchy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971): 17-32.
* Larry Diamond, "Defining and Developing Democracy" in Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation: 1‑7.
Samuel P. Huntington, "What?" In The Third Wave: 26-30.
* Fareed Zakaria, "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy." Foreign Affairs, November/December 1997, 76 (6): 22-43.
* The Economist, "Two cheers for democracy," October 26, 1996, p. 52.
* The Economist, "The vote, but not always much more: democracy in Latin America," October 16, 1993, p. 48.
* Ceclia Dugger, “Why Democracy Means So Little to Pakistan’s Poor,” New York Times, Ocotber 30, 1999.
* Norimitsu Onishi, “Political Reforms Reach Nigeria’s Gasoline Pumps,” New York Times, September 9, 1999.
Week 4. Democracy and its critics (in Singapore and elsewhere)
class debate: does democracy matter?
* Amartya Sen, “Democracy as a Universal Value,” Journal of Democracy, July 1999, 10 (3): 3-17.
* Robert Dahl, Democracy and Its Critics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989): 52-79.
* Samuel P. Huntington, "The Political Gap," in Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968): 1‑8.
* John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Chapter 1, in David Spitz, ed., On Liberty: Annotated Text, Sources, and Background Criticism (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1975): 3-16.
* Seth Mydans, “Singapore’s ‘Goalkeeper, Fends Off Democracy,” in The New York Times, July 10, 1988, Section 4, p. 2.
* “Singapore: Upgrading Democracy,” (Editorial) Business Times of Singapore, May 15, 1991.
* Bilahari Kausikan, “Governance That Works,” Journal of Democracy, 1997, 8 (2): 24-34.
* Margaret Ng, “Why Asia Needs Democracy,” Journal of Democracy, 1997, 8 (2): 10-23.
* Fareed Zakaria, “Culture is Destiny: A Conversation with Lee Kuan Yew,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 1994, 73 (6):189-94.
* Kim Dae Jung, “Is Culture Destiny? The Myth of Anti-Democratic Values. A Response to Lee Kwan Yew,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 1994, 73 (6):189-94.
* Nicolò Machiavelli, “The Masses are Wiser and More Constant than a Prince,” The Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 58, in Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa, eds., The Portable Machiavelli (New York: Penguin Books, 1979):281-286. [Originally published in 1531.]
James Madison, Numbers 10 and 51, in James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, The Federalist Papers (New York, Penguin Books, 1987): 122-28, 319-22. [Originally published in 1788.]
Alexis de Tocqueville, “Government by Democracy in America,” in Democracy in America, Volume I, in J. P. Mayer, ed. And George Lawrence, trans. (New York: Harper & Row, 1966): 224-26, 231-37. [Originally published in 1835.]
Asian Journal of Political Science, Special Issue on Singapore, December 1995 (3):1-133.
Michael Haas, “The Politics of Singapore in the 1980s,” Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1989, 19(1): 48.
Donald K. Emmerson, “Singapore and the ‘Asian Values’ Debate,” Journal of Democracy, October 1995, 6(4):95-105.
Francis Fukuyama, “Confucianism and Democracy,” Journal of Democracy, April 1995, 6(2): 20-33.
Thomas R. Lanser, “Rights, Respect, and ‘Asian Values,” Freedom Review, July 1995, 26 (4):42-45.
Michael Freeman, “Human Rights, Democracy, and ‘Asian Values,” The Pacific Review, 1996, 9 (3):352-366.
Week 5. Democracy and the Question of Relativism: The Case of Demokaraasi in Senegal
Video: Tableau Ferraille (85 min)
Senegalese filmmaker Moussa Sense Absa's "Tableau Ferraille" (Scrap Heap) is a drama about the rise and fall of a young politician with two very different wives, the devoted but barren Gagnesiri and the bored, glamorous Kine. When Daam becomes a minister of development, his impoverished community expects him to be a savior - especially a corrupt developer eager to build an unsafe bridge.
Frederic C. Schaffer, Democracy in Translation: ix-xii, 1-115, 139-46.
II. The Causes of Democratization in the Third World
Week 6. Why (and How) do Countries Democratize?
Paper # 1 due
Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: 31-108.
* Dankwart Rustow, "Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model," Comparative Politics, 1970, 2 (3): 337‑363.
* Seymour Martin Lipset, Political Man (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1981), p. 27-63.
III. The Challenges of Consolidating Democracy
Week 7. Nigerian Democracy in Action: What Went Awry?
current events discussion
Chinua Achebe, A Man of the People.
Week 8. Building a Democratic Political Culture in Mexico
* Roderic Ai Camp, Politics in Mexico: The Decline of Authoritarianism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999): 53-71.
* P.J. O’Rourke, “Of Lunch and War," Rolling Stone, November 3, 1994: 83-90.
* Ann Craig and Wayne Cornelius, “Political Culture in Mexico: Continuities and Revisionist Interpretations,” in Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, The Civic Culture Revisited (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1989): 325-83.
* Marta Lagos, "Public Opinion in New Democracies: Latin America's Smiling Mask," Journal of Democracy, July 1997, 8 (3):125-38.
* Gabriel Almond and Sidney Verba, “Mexico: Alienation and Aspiration,” in The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1989): 310-12.
* Octavio Paz, “Critique of the Pyramid,” from The Other Mexico, in The Labyrinth of Solitude and Other Writings (New York: Grove Press, 1985): 284-325.
* Larry Diamond, "Political Culture” in Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation: 161-200.
Week 9. The Rule of Law (Or Lack Thereof): Mexico, Brazil, the Philippines, etc.
Film: Herod’s Law
* Sheila S. Coronel, "Cavite: The Killing Fields of Commerce" in Boss, ed., Five
Case Studies of Local Politics in the Philippines (Pasig, Philippines: Philippines
Center for Investigative Journalism, 1995): 1-29.
* James Holston, “The Misrule of Law: Land and Usurpation in Brazil,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, October 1991, 33 (4): 695-725.
* re-read Ceclia Dugger, “Why Democracy Means So Little to Pakistan’s Poor,” New York Times, Ocotber 30, 1999.
Week 10. Establishing Civilian Control over the Military: Brazil and Ecuador
Samuel P. Huntington, "The Torturer Problem" and "The Praetorian Problem," in The Third Wave: 211‑53.
* Alfred Stepan, Rethinking Military Politics: Brazil and the Southern Cone (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988): 68-127.
* Wendy Hunter, "Politicians against Soldiers: Contesting the Military in Postauthoritarian Brazil," Comparative Politics, July 1995 (27): 425‑43.
Week 11. Democracy and Ethnic Conflict: The Case of Sri Lanka
S.J. Tambiah, Sri Lanka: Ethnic Fratricide and the Dismantling of Democracy
Week 12. Democracy for Whom? Do women participate in politics differently from men ?
Paper # 3 due
Videos: When Women Unite: Story of an Uprising (80 min)
This video documents the story of an extraordinary social movement in rural India, a spontaneous grass‑roots uprising by village women against the sale of arrack (state‑supplied distilled liquor), which pitted them against village men, arrack contractors and the state bureaucracy, and which led after four hard‑fought years (1992‑1995) to the ban of arrack sales in Andhra Pradesh.
*Kay L. Schlozman, N. Burns, S. Verba and J. Donahue, "Gender and Citizen
Participation: Is There a Different Voice" in American Journal of Political
Science, Vol. 39, No. 2, May 1995 pp 267-93
* Amrita Basu, Two Faces of Protest: Contrasting Modes of Women's Activism in
India (Los Angeles: University of California Press:1992):3-24. For
reference, also xi
* Viramma: Life of an Untouchable (New York: Verso, 1997):v-vii, 257-281.
* Viramma: Life of an Untouchable (New York: Verso, 1997): 288-290;293-305.
Week 13. Gazing into the Crystal Ball
current events discussion
No readings.
Newspapers, Newswires and Magazines:
· The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/)
· The Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/)
· The Christian Science Monitor (http://csmonitor.com/)
· The Economist (http://www.economist.com/)
· Agence France Press (http://www.afp.com/english/)
· Associated Press (http://wire.ap.org/)
World Wide Web Sites:
General
· The Central Intelligence Agency World Factbbook: www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook.
· Democracy Center: www.democracyctr.org
· Information on democracy throughout the world.
· Freedom House: www.freedomhouse.org
· Information on political, civil, media, and economic freedom around the world.
· Cultural Survival: www.cs.org.
· Africa (general)
· Index on Africa: http://www.africaindex.africainfo.no/
· Pan African News Agency: http://www.afnews.org/ans/pana/FEED/PAAFEED.html
· Africa News Online: http://www4.nando.net/ans/ans.html
· Washington Post on Africa: http://www.wahsingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/africa.html
· African Studies (U Penn): http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/AS.html
· Asia (general)
· Asia Week: http://www.pathfinder.com/asiaweek/
· Far East Economic Review: http://www.feer.com/
· CNN Asia: http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/asiapcf/
· Latin America
· Latin American Studies Program, UT-Austin: www.lanic.utexas.edu:80/las.html
· Latin American Studies Association homepage: www./info.pitt.edu/~lasa
· David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University: www.fas.harvard.edu/~drclas
· Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California at San Diego: weber.ucsd.edu/Depts/USMex/ctrbkmk.1.htm.
· United Nations Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC): http://www.eclac.cl
· Organization of American States: www.oas.org
· Inter-American Development Bank (IADB): http://www.iadb.org
· CNN Latin America: http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/americas
· Reforma newspaper: http://www.reforma.com.mx
Middle East (general)
· Middle East Times: http://www.metimes.com/
· Middle Express: http://www.middlexpress.com/
· Challenge: http://www.odaction.org/challenge/
· The Egyptian Gazette: http://www.egy.com
· Egypt Today: http://www.egypttoday.com/
· Cairo Live: http://www.cairolive.com/
· Iran Press Service: http://www.iran-press-service.com/
India
· India Express Group: http://www.expressindia.com/
· The Economic Times: http://www.economictimes.com/
· The Hindu: http://www.indiaserver.com.thehindu/
· India Daily: http://www.indiadaily.com/
· Hindustan Times: http://www.hindustantimes.com/
· The Times of India: http://www.timesof india/com/
· The Pioneer: http://www.the-pioneer.com
Web sites for general news on Africa:
· http://www.africaindex.africainfo.no
· http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/inatl/africa.htm
· http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/About_African/ww_news.html
Links to African newspaper web sites:
· http://www.realnet.co.sz/real/news/afrinews.html
· http://www.africaonline.com/AfricaOnline/newsstand.html
· http://www.esperanto.se/kiosk/afrinews.html
Web site for general information on Africa and African Studies:
· http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/AS.html
Nigeria
· Africa News: http://www.africanews.org/west/nigeria
· The Post Express Wired: http://www.postexpresswired.com/
Senegal
· Africa News: http://www.africanews.org/west/senegal
Sri Lanka
· The Daily News: http://www.lanka.net/lakehouse/
· The Sri Lankan Information Centre: http://www.lankaweb.com/news/
· The Sunday Leader: http://www.lanka.net/sundayleader/
· The Sunday Times: http://www.lacnet.org/suntimes/
· The Island: http://www.upali.lk/island/