Mexican politics

Semester: 

Spring

Offered: 

2019
Title: Visiting Assistant Professor. Harvard University, Department of Government.
Summary: Mexico's history features a unique combination of characteristics unseen in the rest of the world. It experienced a prolonged and violent revolutionary war, constructed one of the world's longest-lasting authoritarian regimes, and yet consolidated a democratic political system that's vulnerable to populist appeals. Most countries during the past century had only one or two of these features, but not all three. This course will explore Mexico's idiosyncratic political identity and the distinctive challenges that come with it. We will come to understand why drug-related violence has spiraled out of control over the last decade, the role U.S.-Mexico trade agreements play in creating a widening economic gap between north and south, and how crony capitalism has survived the consolidation of a democratic Mexico. Our primary goal is to discover the country in all its complexities by debunking the cartoonish stereotypes of one of the U.S.'s most important political, economic, and strategic allies.
Syllabus215 KB