The Southern Cone

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Juris Doctor, Undergraduate

Seminar: The Southern Cone This graduate seminar examines the political, economic and social development of the Southern Cone since 1945, with a strong emphasis on the first decade and half of the 21st century. The foreign policy and connections with the world of this sub-region will be examined. Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay will be studied providing balanced attention to common characteristics and challenges as well as distinctive and idiosyncratic aspects of each country. Chronologically, the seminar will analyze several overarching themes, such us the relations between state & markets, military coups, transition to democracy, democratic quality, political parties systems, the role of extractive sectors (agriculture, mining), stressing its connections with the world economy, import substitution industrialization (ISI), bureaucratic authoritarianism (BA), the external debt & crisis, the lost decade (1980s), the neoliberal reforms and the Washington Consensus, the integration process among Southern Cone countries (MERCOSUR), the political cycle called “turn to the left” and its aftermath, and the political and economic effects of the growing relations with China.