NS3578 Society, Politics, and Security in Contemporary Brazil

Brazil is the largest county in South America, a major regional power that is rapidly emerging as an important global actor. This course will provide students with the historical and social background required to better understand contemporary Brazil. It will survey its recent history and current condition as a consolidating democracy, and focus on security issues both as perceived by the Brazilian elite, and as projected upon Brazil by the United States and Brazil's neighbors in South America. Prerequisites: None.

Lecture Hours

4

Lab Hours

0

Course Learning Outcomes

• Our goals are not only to learn what happened, but also to consider and debate why it happened, drawing on tools of foreign policy analysis to identify and assess the impact of different causal factors on Brazilian decision making.
• We will ask questions like:
• Do Brazilian choices about war and peace, and strategic alliances and trade pacts, reflect colonial legacies and national identity?
• Are they the product of international incentives and economic interests?
• Or do different leaders and governments respond differently to similar external situations?