Course Description

For more than five decades, the so-called “third” or “developing” world has been at the receiving end of numerous grand schemes (and billions of dollars of aid) to raise living standards, transfer technology, and eradicate disease, illiteracy, famine and despair.  Yet over one-quarter of humanity continues to live in conditions of abject poverty.  Nearly twenty percent of our global population of more than 6 billion are hungry, eating fewer than 1200 calories per day.  The United Nations estimates that 1.2 billion people manage with a total income of less than $1 a day (most North Americans spend at least twice that to rent a video; $1 a day is about half the per-person daily pet food budget in the advanced industrial countries).  One in six people lives without access to safe drinking water, over one billion have no access to basic literacy training, and a startling 1 in 3 children born in the developing world will die before their 40th birthday.

The data are numbing because, in effect, we know them already.  We know the problem has proven stubborn, elusive, almost biblical in its seeming intractability.  Nevertheless, practitioners and scholars of development have long resisted “the poor will always be among us” fatalism, as well as the more recently fashionable excuse that the poor “fail to compete effectively” in free markets.  While determined optimism has historically colored development grandiose and sometimes evangelical, there are some signs of real learning taking place.  The debris fields left from the wreckage of so many “latest and greatest” grand campaigns to eliminate global poverty (from infrastructure building, through integrated rural development, basic human needs, market empowerment, all the way to community organizations) are yielding useful, incremental lessons.

Since 9/11, what we've learned and failed to learn from decades of "doing development" has turned out to be a most pressing issue as the US has unexpectedly undertaken the grandest development campaigns since colonialism, seeking to recraft whole societies in Afghanistan and Iraq.  This class will help you see that this is not the first time this sort of thing has been tried, although over the centuries, the rationale, methods and accents of those setting out to bring “development,” “modernity,” civilization” and “light” to those “in need” has varied.  As the U.S. is learning in Iraq, replacing a regime and rebuilding an economy requires order, which demands the establishment of effective institutions (of governance, production, distribution, and the dissemination of meaning), which depends on consent, which in turn seems to flow well from something called legitimacy, which itself is deeply embedded in the particularities of history and culture.  The whole business is astonishingly complex, surprisingly unlikely to be met with flowers, and has a frustrating tendency to last longer than one baseball season. We as a country need a crash course in “Development 101” (or as we call it here, INTL 240).  We need to begin with a clear grasp of the problematic, theory and practice of international development.

To that end, this course will introduce you to many efforts, almost all of them well intentioned, to spread peace, prosperity and popular government.  The course will thus push you to face the striking inequity between the gluttonous range of comforts and choices in this, one of the world’s most comfortable societies, and the nearly medieval poverty, lack of access to good housing, education, clean water, basic medicine and simple hope in most of the “developing” or “third” world.  We will make ourselves familiar with the “problematic” of development, explore competing conceptualizations of the issues and ideologies at their base, consider what’s been tried in the past to address these issues, examine carefully what seems to work, explore major challenges facing developing societies today, and reflect on what we in the materially rich societies can do to address the problem of global, faraway (and local, nearby) poverty and underdevelopment

Lecture & Discussion Section

We will meet in our large group for lecture every Monday and Wednesday. You will then break up into smaller groups for once a week discussion sections moderated by a graduate teaching fellow (GTF). Our large group lectures bring us together as a full community, about the size of a small village. This scale will not prevent us from getting to know one another, posing questions, and learning through discussion and other participatory activities. In discussion section, you will meet in a smaller, neighborhood-sized group to pose more questions, discuss, debate and engage in more experiential learning activities. We will have at least one group "role play," or simulation of a real-world political scenario. 

Course Policies

In spite of the size of our large group meeting, please feel free to ask questions in class. Don't hesitate to ask for clarification, since you can be sure that a good fraction of your peers are uncertain about the same point, but they're afraid to ask or worse still, are embarrassed that they might seem silly or uninformed. In our class, there are only two types of quesitons -- good ones, and unspoken ones. There are NO "dumb questions."

Everyone learns in different ways and at different speeds. Sometimes, material will be presented at a pace which is too fast for you (good time to raise your hand), sometimes the opposite is true. At all times, it is your responsibility to be respectful and courteous to your colleagues and to the class. This means that you should not do anything that might distract others around you from focusing on the material presented in class or on discussions raised by students' questions. To that end, please do not open newspapers or other extraneous material during class. Show up to class on time and do not leave -- mentally, physically, or by putting away your notebooks and other materials -- until class is over and the lecture has concluded.

You will need come to every class (lecture and discussion section) prepared to pose questions, offer comments and generally engage in informed conversation about topics covered in readings and lecture. Complete all the reading for a topic by the first date on which we're scheduled to discuss that topic, unless you hear otherwise.

Unexcused absences from lecture and discussion section will count against the attendance & participation portion of your overall course grade. If you must miss a class for reasons beyond your control, you must clear that absence with the professor or GTF in advance of the day you will be absent. Otherwise it will be considered unexcused.

Reaction Papers and other items with a scheduled due date will be marked down for lateness in proportion to the degree of lateness. The initial penalty for any degree of lateness is quite severe -- 15% of your total possible grade for that assignment [e.g.: a paper that would have earned an 88, when turned in late, gets a 73]. The later you turn something in, the greater the penalty.

No laptops allowed in class, except with prior approval from the professor.  Just as it's obvious that the cutting edge technology of the 1950s – the transistor radio -- would have been a major distraction in a classroom, the same is true for wireless Internet today.  If you need the laptop for note taking you must request and receive approval first, and will be required to sit in the first few rows of the classroom. 

About Citations (& Plagiarism)

Please note well: there are two ways to get a grade of 0 (ZERO) on a written assignment for this class: 1) Citing a source you have never seen or read is an old, tried and true way of cheating. It results in an automatic score of ZERO (0) on your assignment. 2) Plagiarizing -- presenting the ideas or written words of another (an author you read, for example) as if they were your own, without citation or quotation -- earns you a 0 (ZERO) on the assignment.

It's a very good idea, then, to know the rules of quoting and citing. If you are not sure what plagiarism is, have a look at Plagiarism.org. For help with citation rules and styles, check out the UC Berkeley Library Guide to Citation Styles, Plagiarism and Style Manuals. For more information on citation formats, take a look at the Murdoch University (Australia) Guide to Citation Styles.
 

Communicating with the Class

We will use a course list-serve  to communicate announcements pertaining to class and to give you a chance to discuss class-related issues and coordinate class-related activities.  The list-serve provides an electronic forum or meeting place, where you can post comments, questions, concerns, ideas or suggestions related to the class. This is a useful way to generate discussions which parallel, supplement and deepen our in-class experience.

Remember, of course, that the same key requirement for our in-class, face to face encounters applies on the list serve: approach your colleagues and their ideas with a patient, open mind, as well as a willingness to see from new perspectives, explore the unfamiliar, and honestly challenge ingrained assumptions about how the world works. Respect others on the list serve as you would have them respect you.

You will be automatically subscribed to the list serve system using the email address listed with your registration.

Rooms and Meeting Times

Lectures take place in 282 Lillis PLC , Mon & Wed, 12:00 - 1:20 pm. Course begins Monday, 24 September  and ends Friday, 30 November 2007. Final exam is at 10:15 am on Monday, Dec 3, 2007 in 282 Lillis (no make-up exams, so if you cannot be there for the final, please do not register for the course).

Discussion sections take place in the following locations:

Contacting the Professor and Graduate Teaching Fellows

Please feel free to email us, drop by office hours or call our offices at any time, with any type of question or concern. Don't hesitate -- we are eager to hear from and see you, ready to find ways to help!

Professor:

Dennis Galvan
dgalvan@uoregon.edu
305 PLC, 346-2851
office hours: Mon 2-3, Tues 11am to 1pm; or by appointment
NOTE: If you find a line outside my office, pls put your name on the sign up sheet or stick your head in to let me know you are waiting.

Graduate Teaching Fellows:

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