LACS 1002A: Introduction to Latin American and Caribbean Studies II
Winter 2022
Instructor: Professor Pablo Heidrich
This course will approach contemporary Latin America (late XX Century to today) from a political economy lens, assessing how global and local economic forces plus political ideas, social movements and individual leaders have contributed to the creation of today’s regional experiences. Specifically, it will look at how Latin America’s participation in the world economy as mostly a provider or natural resources and migrant labour has maintained its current pattern of underdevelopment, while new (and old) political formulations from the region itself seek to improve its situation. Intra-regional comparisons of the forces of populism, neoliberalism and radical politics will explain with national cases how domestic political and social processes react to globalization, as experienced in the South.