Undergraduate Module Descriptor

POL3180: Latin American Parties, Politics and Elections

This module descriptor refers to the 2016/7 academic year.

Module Content

Syllabus Plan

Whilst the module's precise content may vary from year to year, it is envisaged that the syllabus will cover some or all of the following topics:

1) The idea and emergence of democracy

2) State formation and authoritarian constraints

3) Latin America and the 3rd wave of democratization

4) Democratic transformation and transition

5) Democratic transitions from above and from below

6) Parties, electoral politics and party systems

7) Latin America's 'left turn', 'right turn', or sticking to the middle?

8) Exclusive-legislative relations and governability

9) Populism versus party systems?

10) Populist political projects, right and left

11) Understanding the quality of democracy

12) The imperfect rule of law

13) Inequality, social exclusion and legitimacy

14) Citizenship rights and social mobilization

15) Economic development and comparative democratic performance

16) Constitutional design and attempts to re-found the republic

17) The accountability deficit

Learning and Teaching

This table provides an overview of how your hours of study for this module are allocated:

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
44	256	0

...and this table provides a more detailed breakdown of the hours allocated to various study activities:

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning & Teaching activities	44	2 hour seminars facilitated by the lecturer. The seminar will comprise of elcture led sessions, group work and whole class discussion and student led presentations.
Guided independent study	155	Reading and preparation for seminars and presentations
Guided independent study	55	Writing up 2 essays and a preparation for the two presentations
Guided independent study	46	Web-based activities - preparation for seminars and presentations

Online Resources

This module has online resources available via ELE (the Exeter Learning Environment).

- ELE – http://vle.exeter.ac.uk/

- BBC News – Latin America & Caribbean: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world/latin_america/

- Latinamerica Press: http://www.lapress.org/

- MercoPress: http://en.mercopress.com/

- Buenos Aires Herald: http://www.buenosairesherald.com/

- LatinoBarometro: http://www.latinobarometro.org/latino/latinobarometro.jsp

- Latin American Public Opinion Project: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/lapop/

Indicative Reading List

This reading list is indicative - i.e. it provides an idea of texts that may be useful to you on this module, but it is not considered to be a confirmed or compulsory reading list for this module.

Peter Kingstone and Deborah Yashar (2012) Routledge Handbook of Latin American Politics contains detailed essays on a series of big topics (many of them covered in this module).

Thomas Skidmore, Peter Smith and James Green (2013) Modern Latin America 8^th edition (OUP)

John Peeler (2009) Building Democracy in Latin America 3^rd edition (Lynne Rienner)

Peter H. Smith (2005) Democracy in Latin America: Political Change in Comparative Perspective (OUP)

Joe Foweraker et al. (2003) Governing Latin America (Polity)

Barry Clarke and Joe Foweraker eds. (2001) Encyclopedia of Democratic Thought (Routledge

Robert Dahl (1998) On Democracy (Yale University Press).

R. Dahl, I. Shapiro and J. A. Cheibub (2002) Democracy Sourcebook (MIT Press).