SAIS IDEV Intersession Field Practicum 2010 / El Salvador SYLLABUS
Today the visitor’s usual approach to El Salvador is by air. Whether flying east from Guatemala, south from Honduras, or west from Nicaragua a dramatic change of landscape becomes apparent as the borders of this small Central American republic are crossed. In sudden contrast to the forested mountains and partially cleared plains and valleys that have been flown over, the observer looks down on a landscape that has been transformed by man’s usage. Despite the majestic forms and shapes of volcanic mountains, the variety of undulating basins and plains, or the broad sweep of rivers, it is the imprint of man upon every part of this landscape that arrests the attention…
-David Browning, El Salvador, Landscape and Society, 1971.
Practicum leadership team: Professor Francis Fukuyama (), Brian Norris (), Seth Colby (), Federico Qϋerio ()
Lecture series instructor: Brian Norris
Student coordinator: Federico Qϋerio
ERes Instructor Name: Norris
Lecture series meetings: every Friday, 3:30 – 5:30 PM starting Sept. 18, 2009, ending Nov. 6, 2009. See schedule of speakers.
Location: #736, Bernstein Offit Building (BOB), 1717 Massachusetts Ave.
Office hours: by appointment
UPDATED VERSIONS OF THIS SYLLABUS AVAILABLE AT: www.sais-jhu.edu/idev-intersession-es
Intersession Field Practicum
The IDEV Intersession Field Practicum is an in-depth study of the development case of El Salvador. It has three components: 1) an 8 class lecture series beginning on Sept. 18 and ending on Nov. 6; 2) a two-week group visit to El Salvador from Jan. 3-16, 2010; and 3) individual student research projects. Components 1 and 2 are organized around thematic areas described in the concept paper. The topic of component 3, the individual student research project, is negotiated between each student and the Practicum leadership team. This syllabus conveys information primarily related to component 1, the lecture series, as well as key dates for components 2 and 3. Brian Norris will provide more information about components 2 and 3 during selected lecture series sessions.
Lecture Series
This lecture series will provide students participating in the IDEV Intersession Field Practicum with a general introduction to Salvadoran history and selected current public policy issues. The lecture series assumes no prior knowledge of regional or Salvadoran history on the part participants.
The series has two primary goals. The first is to provide participants with the background information and technical vocabulary needed to participate actively in the in-country interviews with Salvadoran politicians, bureaucrats, private sector leaders and other civil society leaders that the group will conduct from January 3-16, 2010. The Practicum leadership team will provide a partial list of in-country interviews by 10/9/2009 and will further discuss the day-by-day agenda and learning goals with the group during the lecture series. The second goal of the lecture series is to provide students with contextual information on Salvadoran society, culture and history to further their individual research projects. Participants should consult the schedule of speakers for more information about each class.
Students are not required to purchase any text for the lecture series. All required readings are on ERes.
Attendance at all lectures is mandatory for students participating in the Intersession Field Practicum.
While no grade is given for participation in the lecture series and other Practicum activities, students are expected to come to class prepared to discuss readings and participate actively. The Practicum faculty may determine whether a student should continue in the Practicum based on performance in the lecture series and on meeting other requirements.
January Visit to El Salvador
More information forthcoming.
Research Project
Each student will develop an individual research project on a public policy issue approved by the Practicum leadership team. Students should contact Brian Norris for an individual meeting to discuss and have approved their research topics by Oct. 2 at the latest. The research project will culminate in a 25 page paper, due on January 22, 2010 by email to . Students will present the findings of their research to the SAIS community at a roundtable event in a location to be determined on January 25, 2009. Key date and deadlines include the following:
Oct. 2, Students should have had individual research topics approved by Brian Norris by this date
Oct. 9, List of potential /probable interviewees presented to class
Oct. 16, Students give 5 minute oral presentation of research topic to the group
Nov. 30, 7 page document with initial findings, research plan for El Salvador and bibliography due to by 5 PM.
Jan. 22, 25 page final paper due by email by 5 PM
Jan. 25, presentation of research to SAIS community in roundtable discussion (location and time TBD)
Recommended general texts:
Ralph Lee Woodward. Central America: a Nation Divided. 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
David Browning. El Salvador, Landscape and Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).
Class 1- Intro: “Salvadoran Exceptionalism” and Central American History, ca. 1500-present, SEPT. 18 (Brian Norris, SAIS)
Required:
Richard Morse. "The Heritage of Latin America." In The Founding of New Societies: Studies in the History of the United States, Latin America, South Africa, Canada, and Australia, Louis Hartz, ed. (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1964), 123-51. (29 pages)
Ralph Lee Woodward. Central America: a Nation Divided. 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), conquest of CA: 25-35, Kingdom of Guatemala map: 37, Bourbon reforms: 61-68. (19 pages)
Ralph Lee Woodward. “Central America from Independence to c. 1870,” Cambridge History of Latin America (CHLA) Vol. III, 471-506. (36 pages)
Ciro F.S. Cardoso. “Central America: the Liberal Era, c. 1870-1930,” CHLA Vol. V, 197-227. (31 pages)
Edelberto Torres Rivas. “Central America since 1930: An Overview,” CHLA VII, 161-210. (50 pages) [skim]
Recommended:
Wiarda, H. J. The Soul of Latin America: the Cultural and Political Tradition. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2001, Ch. 3 “Medieval Iberia: The Distinct Tradition”, 50-75 (25 pages)
David Bushnell and Neill Macaulay. “The Caribbean Vortex and the Nineteenth Century: Cuba and Central America.” In The Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994) 263-4, 270-85. (17 pages)
Class 2- Salvadoran History, ca. 1770-present, SEPT. 25 (Héctor Lindo-Fuentes)
Required:
David Browning. El Salvador: Landscape and Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), El Salvador’s colonial heritage, 78-125. (47 pages)
Héctor Lindo-Fuentes. Weak Foundations: the Economy of El Salvador in the Nineteenth Century 1821-1898 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), The opening of the Salvadoran economy and the expansion of coffee cultivation 1840-80, 99-124 (25 pages)
James Dunkerley. “El Salvador since 1930,” in CHLA, Vol. VII, Political and economic development in the 20th century, 251-283. (33 pages)
Alexander Segovia “The War Economy of the 1980s,” in James K. Boyce, Economic policy for Building Peace: the Lessons of El Salvador (Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner Publishers, 1996), the economy of El Salvador during the civil war.
Recommended:
Patricia Parkman, Nonviolent Insurrection in El Salvador: The Fall of Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1988) Ch. 1, The military regime of Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, 1930-44.
Philip J. Williams and Knut Walter, Militarization and Demilitarization in El Salvador's Transition to Democracy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997), 1948 coup and formation of PRUD, Osorio as reformist, PRAM, 37-62. (26 pages).
William H. Durham, Scarcity and Survival in Central America: Ecological Origins of the Soccer War (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1979), Land use transformations in the 1960s, 21-46. (25 pages)
Frederick S. Weaver, Inside the Volcano: The History and Political Economy of Central America (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), The Political economy of Central America 1950-1979, 153-73. (20 pages)
Class 3- Modernization in El Salvador, Political Cultural and Salvadoran Political Development, OCT. 2 (Brian Norris, SAIS)
Required:
Samuel Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 32-47. (16 pages)
Dana Munro Gardner. The Five Republics of Central America: Their Political and Economic Development and Their Relation with the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918) Ch. 5 “Salvador”, 99-118. (20 pages).
Thomas P. Anderson, Politics in Central America (New York: Praeger, 1982), Chapter 1 “A Social and Political Overview [of Central America]”, p. 1-15 (15 pages); Chapter 5 “El Salvador: 50 years of Solitude”, p. 63-75 (13 pages)
Ralph Lee Woodward, Central America, a Nation Divided. 3rd ed. Latin American Histories: Oxford University Press, 1999), Salvadoran Politics after 1944: 259-68. (9 pages)
Ronald H. McDonald, "Electoral Behavior and Political Development in El Salvador." The Journal of Politics 31, no. 2 (1969): 400-417. (17 pages)
Alastair White, El Salvador (New York: Praeger, 1973). “The Political Process” 192-222 (30 pages)
Stephen Webre. Jose Napoleon Duarte and the Christian Democratic Party, 1960-1972 (Baton Rouge and London: Louisiana State university, 1979), the early days of the Christian Democratic Party in El Salvador, p. 31-48 (18 pages) [skim]
David Martin. Tongues of Fire: the Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America (Cambridge, MA: Oxford University Press, 1990), Protestantism in El Salvador 89-91 (3 pages).
Recommended readings on political culture:
Howard J. Wiarda, The Soul of Latin America: the Cultural and Political Tradition. (New Haven, Yale University Press, 2001), Ch 2.: “Origins: Greece, Rome, the Bible, and Medieval Christianity”, 19-49 (30 pages)
Véliz, Claudio. The New World of the Gothic Fox: Culture and Economy in English and Spanish America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994 (Chapter 1, pages 1-14) (14 pages)
Elliott, J.H. "Going Baroque." The New York Review of Books 41, no. 17 (1994).
Fukuyama, Francis. “Conclusion.” In Falling Behind: Explaining the Development Gap between Latin America and the United States. Francis Fukuyama, ed. (Oxford: New York, 2008.) (4 pages)
Recommended on development of ARENA:
Tommy Sue Montgomery. “Armed Struggle and Resistance in El Salvador” in The Latin American Left: From the Fall of Allende to Perestroika in Carr, Barry and Steve Ellner, ed. (Boulder and San Francisco: Westview Press, 1993), Ch. 6-El Salvador. (20 pages)
Elisabeth J. Wood, “Civil War and the Transformation of Elite Politics in El Salvador”, in Conservative Parties, the Right, and Democracy in Latin America ed. Kevin J. Middlebrook (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), Ch. 7-El Salvador. (31 pages)
Class 4- Aid in El Salvador - 1950 to 2008 Oct. 23 (Brian Norris, SAIS; Matt Bohn, MCC; John McPhail, World Vision)
Required:
Ralph Lee Woodward. Central America, a Nation Divided. 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), trade more than aid and aid more than military assistance: 290-99. (10 pages)
George Jackson Eder. Inflation and Development in Latin America: a Case History of Inflation and Stabilization in Bolivia (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1968), the ills of aid in Bolivia: 593-608. (16 pages); Cuban exceptionalism 99-100 (2 pages).
Stephen Radelet. Challenging Foreign Aid: A Policymakers Guide to the Millennium Challenge Account (Washington, D.C.: Center for Global Development, 2003), p. 1-18.
El Salvador MCC webpage
El Salvador MCC Compact
FOMELINIO
Recommended:
Amartya Sen, “Introduction” in Peter Thomas Bauer, From Subsistence to Exchange and Other Essays (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000), p. ix-xi (3 pages).
P.T. Bauer, “The Vicious Circle of Poverty and the Widening Gap” in P.T. Bauer, Dissent on Development (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), p. 31-49 (19 pages)
Jeffrey Sachs, “Why Some Countries Fail to Thrive” in Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty (New York : Penguin Press, 2005) p. 51-73 (23 pages).
Class 5- Recent Economic Overview, Oct. 16 (Jordi Prat, IMF) [PRESENTATION IN SPANISH]
Required:
Ricardo Hausman and Dani Rodrik, “Self-Discovery in a Development Strategy for El Salvador” Economia, Fall 2005 (43-101) [skim]
El Salvador: 2008 Article IV Consultation
Statement by an IMF Mission to El Salvador [on IMF/El Salvador $800m Stand By Agreement, SBA]
FUSADES, “Resumen Ejecutivo: Cómo Está El Salvador?”
Class 6- Transition from State-Led Economic Model, Dollarization and other Economic Reforms in the Democratic Era, 1989-2004 (Juan José Daboub, former Finance Minister of El Salvador)
Required:
William Stanley. The Protection Racket State: Elite Politics, Military Extortion, and Civil War in El Salvador (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), the end of Hernandez Martinez regime in 1944 and the military’s beginning of state-led economic policies from 1948 on: pp. 65-8, (4 pages), 73-80. (8 pages)
Re-read: Ralph Lee Woodward, Central America, a Nation Divided. 3rd ed. Latin American Histories: Oxford University Press, 1999), economic reforms from the Cristiani (ARENA) administration from 1989 forward: 265-68. (4 pages)
Re-read: James Dunkerley. “El Salvador since 1930,” in Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol. 7, the rise of ARENA in the late 1980’s: 280-283. (4 pages)
Manuel Hinds. Playing Monopoly with the Devi l: Dollarization and Domestic Currencies in Developing Countries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). Prologue, Introduction (27 pages)
Barry Eichengreen. “What problems can dollarization solve?” Journal of Policy Modeling 23 (2001), 267-77. (10 pages)
David S. Bloch and William Robert Nelson, Jr. “Dollarization in El Salvador: The costs of Economic Stability” Latin American Law and Business Report. Vol 11, #4, April 30, 2003. (3 pages)
Marcia Towers and Silvia Borzutsky. “The Socioeconomic Implications of Dollarization in El Salvador” Latin American Politics and Society. Vol. 46, #3 (26 pages)
Challenges of CAFTA: maximizing the benefits for Central America, content of the DR-CAFTA, Ch. 3, 39-72 (34 pages) [skim]
Jorge Daboub, “Es atentatorio contra la economía” La Prensa Grafica, 10/12/09
“Condenan McDonald's a pagar $23.9 millones” La Prensa Grafica, 9/8/09
“Decomisan 100 unidades de software pirata” La Prensa Grafica, 9/17/09
“El Salvador con nueva demanda por minería” La Prensa Grafica, 9/2/09
“Proponen excluir a Honduras del CAFTA” La Prensa Grafica, 8/27/09
“Sector privado y Ejecutivo revisan agenda comercial” La Prensa Grafica, 5/7/09
Class 7- Educational Reform in El Salvador through the EDUCO Plan 10/30/2009 (Evelyn Jacir de Lovo, former Minister of Education of El Salvador, current Director of Department of Special Legal Programs OAS) [PRESENTATION IN SPANISH]
Required:
Merilee S. Grindle. Despite the Odds: The Contentious Politics of Education Reform (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004), the issues and challenges of educational reform in Latin America: 27-57. (31 pages)
Oficina Internacional del Trabajo (OIT). “Educacion con Participacion de la Comunidad – El Salvador.”
Carlos Mario Márquez. “El Salvador: EDUCO con los padres”
“Instan a dar continuidad al plan 2021 [i.e., EDUCO]”, La Prensa Grafica, 9/09/2009
“MINED aclara planes y políticas de educación”, La Prensa Grafica, 9/11/2009
Class 8- Municipal Government’s Political Arm, Nov. 6, 12:00-4:00 PM (Hal Parrish, Mayor, City of Manassas, VA [fieldtrip])
Required:
Comparison of Traditions of Local Government in the U.S. and Latin America:
Alexis de Tocqueville. Democracy in America. Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop, trans. and eds. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000) “Powers of the Township in New England”: 58-61; “On the Spirit of the New England Township”: 63-5. (6 pages)
Claudio Veliz. The Centralist Tradition in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980) [TBD]
Manassas, VA local government:
U.S. Census Bureau City Fact Sheet – Prince William County, VA
Class 9- Municipal Government’s Professional Arm, Dec. 4, 3:30-4:30 PM, BOB 736 (Bryan Langley, Director of Finance, City of Denton, TX)
Texas local government and Denton, TX demographics:
E. E. Davis. A Texas Civics with Federal Supplement (Dallas, Tex.: Southern, 1927), Our cities and their needs 154-174 (21 pages); local taxes p. 80-87 (8 pages).
U.S. Census Bureau City Fact Sheet – Denton County, TX
Additional Recommended Reading for Topics of Special Interest
The Soccer War of 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras:
Anderson, Thomas P. War of the Dispossessed (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1981).
“La Matanza” of 1932:
Thomas P. Anderson, Matanza: El Salvador's Communist revolt of 1932 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971).
Recommended for a very detailed account of politics leading to the outbreak of civil war (1970-1988):
James Dunkerley. Power in the Isthmus: A Political History of Modern Central America. London and New York: Verso, 1988. (336-413, 77 pages) [on ERes]
Recommended for a brief introduction to Central American politics:
John A. Booth and Thomas W. Walker, Understanding Central America (3d edition, Westview, 1999).
Skidmore, Thomas E. and Peter H. Smith, Modern Latin America (6th edition, Oxford University Press, 2001, chapter 10).
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