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SOCIOLOGY OF DEVELOPMENT
SPRING, 1996
Instructor: Professor Xiangming Chen
Office: 4150B BSB
Office Hours: Tuesday 12:30-1:30 pm or by appointment
Phone: 6-5391 (O)
E-mail: xmchen@uic.edu
Introduction
This course examines competing theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence concerning the diverse trajectories of industrialization and economic development across nations of varying political and economic systems. We will review major development theories and assess their applicability to cases. We will explore how the strategies and patterns of economic development in different Third World countries and regions can be explained by the combination of such domestic and international conditions as initial factor endowment, cultural traditions, historical events, state strength, economic institutions and positions in the world system. We will also conduct comparative analysis of how increasingly complex production and export networks in selected industries and geographic areas have created new linkages between firms, nation-states, and the global economy.
Requirements and Grading
This course will be conducted as a seminar that combines lectures and discussions. Generally, lectures will be given in the first half of each class period, whereas the latter half will be devoted to discussions of and reflections upon the lecture and reading materials. Regular class attendance and active participation in discussions is required and part of your grade. There will be a midterm exam. A research paper (term project) of 13-15 written pages is required. The outline of the paper, which should be on a topic covered in the course and agreed upon by the instructor, will be due after the Spring Break. Each student will be required to make an oral presentation on a chapter in one of the two books to be read for the class. The completed paper will be due on Tuesday of the last week of the semester. The midterm will constitute 35% of your overall grade, and the paper 45%, with the remaining 20% based on class attendance, discussion and the oral presentation.
Two Books and Four Articles as Class Readings
Barbara Stallings, ed. Global Change, Regional Response: The New Context of International Development. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Gereffi, Gary and Miguel Korzeniewicz, eds. Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism. Praeger Publishers, 1994.
Wallerstein, Immanuel. "Development: Lodestar or Illusion?" Economic and Political Weekly (September 24, 1991).
Portes, Alejandro and A. Douglas Kincaid, "Sociology and Development in the 1990s: Critical Challenges and Empirical Trends." Sociological Forum Vol. 4 No. 4 (December, 1989).
Gereffi, Gary and Stephanie Fonda, "Regional Paths of Development." Annual Review of Sociology (1992).
Xiangming Chen, "The Changing Roles of Free Economic Zones in Development: A Comparative Analysis of Capitalist and Socialist Cases in East Asia." Studies in Comparative International Development 29 (3, 1994).
Course Schedules and Readings
Week 1: Introduction: What Is Sociology of Development?
1/9 Introduction.
1/11 Wallerstein, "Development: Lodestar or Illusion?"
Week 2: General Issues Regarding Development
1/16 Portes and Kincaid "Sociology and Development in the 1990s"
1/18 Portes and Kincaid continued.
Week 3: Regional Paths of Development
1/23 Gereffi and Fonda, "Regional Paths of Development."
1/25 Gereffi and Fonda continued.
Week 4: Free Economic Zones and Development
1/30 Chen, "The Changing Roles of Free Economic Zones in Development"
2/1 Chen continued.
Week 5: The Global and Regional Context of Development
2/6 Stallings in Stallings, chapter 1, pp. 1-14.
2/8 Stallings continued, pp. 14-30.
Week 6: The Third World, First World and the End of the Cold War
2/13 Halliday in Stallings, chapter 2, pp. 33-66.
2/15 Stallings and Streeck, chapter 3, pp. 67-99.
Week 7: Midterm Review and Exam
2/20 Review.
2/22 Midterm Exam.
Week 8: Production Systems, Financial Trends and Development
2/27 Gereffi in Stallings, chapter 4, pp. 100-142.
2/29 Griffth-Jones and Stallings, chapter 5, pp. 143-173.
Spring Break (3/4-3/8)
Week 9: East Asia and Southeast Asia Compared
3/12 Chu in Stallings, chapter 7, pp. 199-237.
3/14 Lim in Stallings, chapter 8, pp. 238-271.
Week 10: Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa Compared
3/19 Varas in Stallings, chapter 9, pp. 272-308.
3/21 Chege in Stallings, chapter 10, pp. 309-345.
Week 11: The New International Context of Development
3/26 Stallings in Stallings, chapter 11, pp. 349-364.
3/28 Stallings continued, chapter 11, pp. 364-387.
Week 12: Commodity Chains: Historical and Spatial Patterns
4/2 Chapter 2 in Gereffi and Korzeniewicz, pp. 17-50.
4/4 Schoenberger in Gereffi and Korzeniewicz, pp. 51-66.
Week 13: The Organization of Commodity Chains
4/9 Gereffi in Gereffi and Korzeniewicz, pp. 95-122.
4/11 Rabach and Kim in Gereffi and Korzeniewicz, pp. 123-161.
Week 14: The Geography of Commodity Chains
4/16 Chen and Appelbaum et al in Gereffi and Korzeniewicz, pp. 165-204.
4/18 Taplin and Lee and Cason in Gereffi and Korzeniewicz, pp. 205-243.
Week 15: Consumption and Commodity Chains
4/23 Korzeniewicz and Goldfrank in Gereffi and Korzeniewicz, pp. 247-279.
4/25 Summary and Conclusion.
Week 16: Final Week
5/1 Term Paper due.