Courses:

Recent years have seen an astonishing spread of democracy to many African, Asian, and Latin American countries. What caused these dramatic political transitions? What challenges do democratizing countries in the Third World face? Will these new democracies endure? We will take up these questions using film, fiction, and popular journalism, as well as scholarly research. We will also focus on a small number of countries (Brazil, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Senegal, Singapore, and Sri Lanka) in order to explore in greater depth some of the most important political challenges faced by developing countries. Although the class focuses on the developing world, many of the lessons should "travel" to democratizing countries in other regions.

The following are required of all students:

1. Class participation: Students must attend weekly class meetings, be prepared to discuss all the required readings (approximately 100 pages per week), and actively participate in class discussions. Please note that we take the class participation component of this course seriously. If you must miss a class, you must notify the instructors in advance. More than one unexcused absence will obviously jeopardize your class participation grade. Also, you must notify us at the beginning of the class if, for whatever reason, you are unprepared to participate in class discussion that day.

Again, more than one unexcused "unprepared" will jeopardize your class participation grade.

In addition to the regular class meetings, students will meet one hour per week for a recitation with the teaching assistant. Participation in recitation is essential, and will be counted toward your overall participation grade.

2. Current events articles.

3. Class debates (Class 4 and Class 10).

4. 3 short (7 page) writing assignments.

5. A three-hour, closed-book, comprehensive final exam.

6. A map test at the beginning of the course.

Grades will be determined as follows: map test (5%); writing assignments (45%); final exam (20%); class participation and class debates (30%).

When writing a paper (or an essay exam), you must identify the nature and extent of your intellectual indebtedness to the authors whom you have read or to anyone else from whom you have gotten ideas (e.g., classmates, invited lectures, etc.). You can do so through footnotes, bibliography, or some other kind of scholarly apparatus. Failure to disclose your reliance on the research or thinking of others is PLAGIARISM, which is considered to be the most serious academic offense and will be treated as such. If you have any questions about how you should document the sources of your ideas, please ask your instructors before you submit your written work. You may also wish to consult Gordon Harvey's Writing with Sources (Hackett, 1998), which will be placed on reserve with the rest of the course readings.

MIT's academic honesty policy can be found at the following link: http://web.mit.edu/policies/10.0.html

Map test: Class 2
First Paper: due three days after Class 4
Second Paper: due five days after Class 7
Third Paper: due three days after Class 12
Final Exam

Professors at other institutions are welcome to use these materials, in whole or in part, for teaching purposes.

Use of the materials should be cited as follows: Chappell Lawson, MIT OpenCourseWare (http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html) course materials for 17.53 (Democratization in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Fall 2001), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, downloaded on [Insert Date].

For oral presentations, please reference these materials. The attribution statement should include Chappell Lawson, 17.53 (Democratization in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Fall 2001), and MIT OpenCourseWare.