SOC 450 Sociology of Developing Areas

Regions of Capitalist Incorporation

Instructor:  Paul Prew
Office:  622 PLC
Office Hours:  2 - 4 M or by appointment
Office Phone:  346-5042
Email:  veerleft@darkwing.uoregon.edu

Coursebook Web Page:  The Study of Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism

Course Links

• Syllabus
• Weekly Readings
• Required Readings must be completed during the week they are assigned.
• Recommended Readings are suggested for further study in the topic area of the week if you are interested.
• Hints for Close Reading
• Lecture Notes
• Group Projects
• October 18th: Choose Topics and Groups
• November 1: Project Proposal Due
• November 19th: Project Due
• November 29th - December 3: Project Presentations
• Citation Examples
• Take Home Essay 1
• Essay Questions Handed Out: October 15th
• Essay 1 Due by Class-time October 22nd
• Take Home Essay 2
• Essay Questions Handed Out: November 17th
• Essay 2 Due by Class-time November 24th

• Extra Credit Opportunities

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Course Description

This course is intended to be an introduction to the problems and dilemmas faced by regions of the world as they become ever more enmeshed in the capitalist world system. Since "development" or, more appropriately, incorporation into global capitalism is an historical process, the course will cover the development of capitalism from the 15^th century to the present. Because of time constraints, this course could not possibly cover all of the regions or nations of the world. Therefore, the class will analyze particular global problems and apply them to specific regions with the capitalist world system. Topics range from the problems industrial agriculture poses for women farmers to the labor conditions of East Asian workers. The course will end with a look at resistence to the negative effects of capitalism and possible avenues for change.

A few things are crucial for successful completion of this course. First, students are expected to have completed all of the relevant readings prior to coming to class. Students must complete the readings in order to participate regularly in class discussions. Class participation will be weighted heavily as part of the graded portion of the class. Since you must be present to participate in class, attendance will be part of your participation grade. After the first week, more than two absences will count against participation. Also, students must work well in groups. Part of the requirements for the class is the completion of a group project. The group project will consist of 4-5 of your classmates on a topic of your choosing within the field of "developing areas." Because the project is due in the 8^th week, you must start work on your project early. During the last week of classes, each group will present its project to the rest of the class. In addition to the course project and participation, students must take two essay exams. To give students the opportunity to supplement a weakness in their grade, students may watch an approved movie and review it for extra credit. A list of possible movie selections will be provided during the quarter.

• Essay 1                        25%
• Essay 2                        25%
• Group Project               25%
• Project Presentation      10%
• Class Participation         15%

• GP     Robbins, Richard H. 1999. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
• AE     Griffiths, Robert J. 1999. "Annual Editions: Developing World 1999 / 2000." Guilford, CT: Dushkin McGraw-Hill.
• Readings on Reserve in the Library
  In addition to the required texts, some required readings for the week will also be placed on reserve in the library reserve room. Reserve readings are listed under the week for which they are assigned. These readings are crucial to understanding the material, participating in class and completing the essay exams.

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Weekly Readings

• Week 1: Sept 27 - Oct 1
• Week 2: Oct 4 - 8
• Week 3: Oct 11 - 15
• Week 4: Oct 18 - 22
• Week 5: Oct 25 - 29
• Week 6: Nov 1 - 5
• Week 7: Nov 8 - 12
• Week 8: Nov 15 - 19
• Week 9: Nov 22 - 24 [Thanksgiving Vacation - 26^th]
• Week 10: Nov 29 - Dec 3
• Final 3:15 Dec 9

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Week 1 Sept 27 - Oct 1

What is Development? / Global Economic Conditions / Ethnocentrism

• AE 1, 2, 3, 35 [8-33, 177-181]
• Bar-Tal, Daniel. 1994. "Models of Conflict and Ethnocentrism." Pp. 328-334 in Haves and Have-Nots: An International Reader on Social Inequality, edited by James Curtis and Lorne Tepperman. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

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Week 2 Oct 4 - 8

Primitive Accumulation / Colonialism / Marshall Plan / Bretton Woods

• GP Chapter 3 [64-112]
• Dunaway, Wilma A. 1994. "The Southern Fur Trade and the Incorporation of Southern Appalachia into the World-Economy, 1690-1763." Review of the Fernand Braudel Center 17:355-381.

Recommended Reading

• So-Called Primitive Accumulation and the Incorporation of the Americas
• Marx, Karl. 1977. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, vol. 1. Translated by Fowkes, Ben. New York: Vintage Books. ["Part Eight: So-Called Primitive Accumulation" 873-940]
• Blaut, James M. 1993. The Colonizer's Model of the World: Geographical Diffusionism and Eurocentric History. New York: Guilford Press.
• Crosby, Alfred W. 1994. Germs, Seeds & Animals : Studies in Ecological History. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
• Dunaway, Wilma. 1996. The First American Frontier :Transition to Capitalism in Southern Appalachia, 1700-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
• Ecologist, The. 1993. Whose Common Future? Reclaiming the Commons. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers.
• Merchant, Carolyn. 1980. The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
• Mintz, Sidney W. 1985. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History. New York: Penguin.
• Wolf, Eric R. 1982. Europe and the People Without History. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• World System Theory
• Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1983. Historical Capitalism. London: Verso.
• Shannon, Thomas R. 1996. An Introduction to the World-System Perspective. Boulder: Westview Press.

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Week 3 Oct 11 - 15

Receive First Essay Questions

Global Lending Institutions / Debt Crisis

• AE 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 [55-72, 77-82]
• Moody, Kim. 1997. Workers in a Lean World. New York: Verso. ["North-South Divide: Uneven Development" 51-66 and "NAFTA and Neoliberalism in North America" Pp. 126-40]
• Roberts, Joseph K. 1998. "Multilateral Agreement on Investment." Monthly Review 50:23-32.
• Gill, Stephen. 1999. "The Geopolitics of the Asian Crisis." Monthly Review 50:1-9.

Recommended Readings

• Marshall Plan, Bretton Woods, The World Bank and the IMF
• Wood, Robert E. 1994. "From the Marshall Plan to the Third World." Pp. 201-14 in Origins of the Cold War: An International History, edited by M. P. Leffler and D. S. Painter. London: Routledge.
• Danaher, Kevin. 1994. 50 Years Is Enough: The Case Against the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Boston, MA: South End Press.
• World Bank Home Page
• IMF Home Page
• IMF and the Debt Initiative for Heavily Indebted Nations
• WTO,GATT and NAFTA
• Global Trade Watch
• A Citizen's Guide to the World Trade Organization: Everything You Need to Know to Fight for Fair Trade, August, 1999 - Pamphlet in PDF Format.
• WTO Home Page
• WTO Discusses Environmental Issues
• Paper from the WTO Perspective Regarding its Future Directions
• Paper Critiquing the WTO and GATT
• Fiscal Crisis
• Frontline: The Crash

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Week 4 Oct 18 - 22

First Essay Due

Nation State / Ethnicity / Indigenous People

• GP Chapter 9 [270-302]
• AE 17, 20 [98-103, 114-117]
• Frank, André Gundner. 1994. "The "Third Worldization" of Russia and Eastern Europe." Pp. 45-72 in Russia and the Third World in the Post-Soviet Era, edited by Mohiaddin Mesbahi. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida.

Recommended Reading

• GP Chapter 4 [113-144]
• The Ogoni and Shell Oil
• Nigeria and Chevron
• Dismantling Former Yugoslavia, Recolonising Bosnia
• Map of Former Yugoslavia
• Map of Former Yugoslavia and Ethnic Majorities

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Week 5 Oct 25 - 29

Project Proposal Due

Population

• GP Chapter 5 [147-178]
• GP Chapter 6 [179-207]
• AE 11, 33, 34 [73-76, 170-176]
• Commoner, Barry. 1994. "Poverty and Population." Pp. 88-95 in Ecology, edited by Carolyn Merchant. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.

Recommended Reading

• Hartmann, Betsy. 1995. Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The Global Politics of Population Control. Boston, Mass.: South End Press.
• Bowditch, John, and Clement Ramsland. 1961. "Voices of the Industrial Revolution: Selected Readings from the Liberal Economists and Their Critics." Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. [49-69]
• Redclift, Michael, and Graham Woodgate. 1995. "The Sociology of the Environment." Vol 2. Brookfield, VT: E. Elgar Pub. [Malthus 78-84]

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Week 6 Nov 1 - 5

Hunger / Women and Development

• AE 39, 40 [194-214]
• Shiva, Vandana. 1994. "Development, Ecology, and Women." Pp. 272-80 in Ecology, edited by Carolyn Merchant. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press.
• Shiva, Vandana. 1989. Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development. London: Zed Books. [xiv-xx, 1-13, 96-120, 140-165]
• Altieri, Miguel A. 1998. "Ecological Impacts of Industrial Agriculture and the Possibilities for Truly Sustainable Farming." Monthly Review 50:60-71.

Recommended Reading

• Lappé, Francis Moore, Joseph Collins, Peter Rosset, and Luis Esparaza. 1998. World Hunger: Twelve Myths. New York: Grove Press.
• Rosset, Peter, and Medea Benjamin. 1994. “The Greening of the Revolution: Cuba's Experiment with Organic Agriculture.” . Melbourne, Australia: Ocean Press.
• Critique of Grameen Bank

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Week 7 Nov 8 - 12

Environment

• GP Chapter 7 [208-237]
• AE 36,37,38 [182-191]
• Fox, Julia. 1999. "Mountaintop Removal in West Virginia: An Environmental Sacrifice Zone." Organization & Environment 12:163-183.
• Moore, Mik. 1998. "Coalition Building Between Native American and Environmental Organizations in Opposition to Development: The Case of the New Los Padres Dam Project." Organization & Enviornment 11:287-313.
• Hall, Kathy. 1996. "Impacts of the Energy Industry on the Navajo and Hopi." Pp. 130-54 in Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice & Communities of Color, edited by Robert D. Bullard. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

Recommended Reading

• Gedicks, Al. 1993. The New Resource Wars : Native and Environmental Struggles Against Multinational Corporations. Boston: South End Press.
• Selden, Mark. 1994. "Pathways from Collectivization: Socialist and Post-Socialist Agrarian Alternatives in Russia and China." Review of the Fernand Braudel Center 17:423-450.
• Selden, Mark. 1988. "City versus Countryside? The Social Consequences of Development Choices in China." Review 11:533-67.

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Week 8 Nov 15 - 19

Projects Due

Receive Second Essay Questions

Labor Conditions

• GP Chapter 2 [35-63]
• AE 5 [39-41]
• Greider, William. 1998. "These Dark Satanic Mills." in One World, Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism. New York: Touchstone. [333-359]

Recommended Reading

• Sonn, Hochul. 1997. "The "Late Blooming" of the South Korean Labor Movement." Monthly Review 49:117-29.

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Week 9 Nov 22 - 24 [Thanksgiving Vacation - 26^th]

Second Essay Due

Resistance / What is to be done?

• GP Chapter 10 [305-337]



• Hamilton, Cynthia. 1996. "Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles." Pp. 207-19 in Unequal Protection: Environmental Justice & Communities of Color, edited by Robert D. Bullard. San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.
• Moody, Kim. 1997. Workers in a Lean World. New York: Verso. [Looking South 201-26]

Recommended Reading

• GP Chapter 11 [338-367]
• Barkin, David. 1998. "Sustainability: The Political Economy of Autonomous Development." Organization & Environment 11:5-32.

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Week 10 Nov 29 - Dec 3

Project Presentations

Final

Dec 9 at 3:15pm in 112 ESL

Extra Credit Movie Reviews Due

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