12024 Dictatorship and Democracy in Latin America 1
Credits: 3 graduate credits in Democracy Studies / Society and Politics
Prerequisites: Democracy: An Interdisciplinary Approach, Israeli Democracy: Selected Issues, Contemporary Democratic Theories; one of the following: Democracy and Democratization, Selected Problems in the History of Western Democracies, Education Policy: Education for Democracy in Democratic Societies, Democracy and Mass Communication,2 Selected Topics in Public Administration; and exemption from bibliographic assignments on computer searches in the “Alef” catalog and databases.
The course is based on a reader edited by Ram Ben-Ari.
The course aims to provide the student with wide and comprehensive knowledge of the changes and extreme fluctuations that occurred in the character of the regimes in various Latin American countries during the last third of the 20th century; the reasons for the phenomenon, seizure of control and government by dictatorship or military rule, as well as the factors leading to the overthrow or replacement of these regimes by an elected civil government. The course reviews the social, economic and political factors, both internal and external, which led to the rise of dictatorships or military regimes in many Latin American countries, and the changes in those factors which led to the fall of these regimes and their replacement by elected governments. It provides an in-depth review of countries in which these processes took place.
Topics: A political, economic, social and historical review of Latin America up to the 1970s; Military dictatorship in Latin America; The process of democratization; The consolidation of democratic regimes; Human rights; Survey of countries – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Central America, Mexico.
1Students may write a seminar paper in this course, although it is not required.
2or Liberalism: Texts, Contexts, Critiques (12005), for students who took it as a required course in the Culture specialization before Spring 2010.