Seminar in Latin American Politics
Faculty
K. Ohgushi
Description
Students research on a selected issue in Latin American politics and present a written paper. Any issue might be chosen insofar as it is related with politics in some way or another. That is, whereas students may select issues more narrowly political, such as civil-military relations, human rights violations, political parties, and electoral politics, they may also choose those social issues which governments have to address, such as poverty, educational problems, pension reform, drug trafficking, women’s problem, etc.
After the introduction to the course, the first three classes will be devoted to discussion based on an introductory text on Latin American Politics (Hiroshi Matsushita & Hiroko Yotsunoya, eds., Raten Amerika: Seiji to Shakai , rev. ed., Shinhyoron, 2004). The following classes will discuss three or four books on different topics in Latin American politics. Students must obtain the texts on their own. Before each class, students will have to present written comments on the texts. Comments should be of more than 2,000 Japanese letters or an equivalent size in other languages. In parallel with the discussion on the texts, the instructor will advise on research writing during the classes.
At the end of February or the beginning of March, a two or three-day seminar will be conducted outside Tokyo where students will present their research.
Whereas the texts used during the classes will be in Japanese, there is not much literature on Latin America in that language. Consequently, students will have to rely on English, Spanish, Portuguese or French for writing a research paper.