Subject Area: Development Studies
This course can also be studied in the following specialisations: Americas Studies; Hispanic Studies; History

Modern Latin America: Dependency and Development elucidates the history and development of Latin America from the Independence period in the early nineteenth century to the present. The basic question posed is why the Latin American republics have been so slow in converging economically, socially and politically with the advanced capitalist countries. Why do so many of them continue to exhibit characteristics that we associate with the Third or Developing World, rather than those we associate with the First or Developed World? The course is organised chronologically and various development strategies including liberalism, import substitution industrialisation, socialism, neo-liberalism and the recent shift to more state directed and export oriented economies examined in the context of ethnic, class, gender and political divisions within specific countries and the relationship of these countries with other parts of the world including the United States, Europe and Asia.