Paste your essay in here…PSCI 341 Latin American Politics Thru Film
Final exam
Essay Question #1
The colonization of the Spanish in Latin America affected the development of the political institutions, political culture and political behavior in the post-independence era. When the Spanish conquistadores first went to Latin America, they were sent by the king. The conquistadores had three goals when they went on their conquest. To spread their religious beliefs, to get gold and for glory. They used the native Americans of this countries for labor, in which they used to help them get gold. They set a new system which became known as the encomienda. The encomienda was to regulate Indian labor, people were granted certain number of natives for whom they were able to take responsibility for. They also had the Repartimiento, where unpaid or low paid labor a certain number of weeks or months a year. Indigenous people both resisted and adapted to the European conquest of their territories.
There were a few racial and social hierarchies that existed in colonial Spanish and Portuguese America. In Europe they based their government on an Authoritarian decision making. One of the Hispanic racial hierarchies began with Peninsulares, born in the peninsula and usually came from wealthy families. Next came the Criolios, born in the new world. Followed by the Mestisos, these were of mixed ancestries. And lastly the Negros, who was the introduction of slavery. With the Spanish colonization also came a lot of diseases, many of the native American populations were wiped out.
Latin America countries began to adapt to the new behaviors, ideas and customs that the Spanish brought with them upon colonization. They brought new weapons, and military disciplines. The Spanish were also a great influence in religion. The Catholic church was undoubtedly the single most important institution in colonial Latin America. Many Spanish set out to make sure natives took up Catholicism. Due to the fact that many of the Latin America were native people had no single form of government it was easier to try to take over and implement their ideas and force their religion on the natives.
The Latin American independence was led by the Creolos. People began to rebel through Latin America. This lead people to begin creating rebellious groups, Simon Bolivar was a leader of the movement. In Caracas the people, were really big in all things Spanish they were not fans of how the Spanish exploited their colonies. There was a very big difference between white and color, between the rich and the poor. There was about sixty thousand slaves, about a third was Spanish, the more Spanish you were the more respected you were. (Simon Bolivar: The Great Liberator)
In the Early 1800, the natives of the Latin American Countries, began to look for ways to become independent from the tyrants. In some countries the people were divided by skin colors, slaves and free people. Most of the power was held by the white people. People did not like the slavery Spanish brought with them. In many of the Latin America countries, the Spanish used natives for labor with little or no pay, this made people rise up to try to change things. In Cuba for example, Jose Marti was passionate to the rise against Spain. He was one of the first people to fights in the independence. Like Jose Marti, fought against slavery, him amongst many others believed that they were all human and were free to do what they wanted. He helped free Chile and joined Bolivar in his quest to free Peru.
In many instances these revolutions for independence, the end result was a new leader, which later people considered as tyrants. The leaders who took over the country feared that they would want to rebel against them as they had done to Spain. To avoid these, the tyrants from different Latin American countries used fear to keep people from rebelling. The military and police have a unique purpose during this time frame, they wanted to destroy people both physically, emotionally and socially. In many instances the military power was used to create fear, they also used the military and police force to torture and kill people who were not going against them believes. These created a hostile environment. However, nationalism help create a sense of belonging and made people believe they were part of something bigger. Many Latin America countries began to have a desire for change.
Essay Question #2
Second, explain why the prevailing view shifted in the mid 1980s until 2007 to the widespread embrace of market-oriented policies, neoliberal policies. What were the objectives and general outcomes of neoliberal policies?
Finally, explain why debate over the appropriate mix of public and private economic activity continues today.
In early 1930’s to the 1980s, the involvements government intervention in the economy favored mostly the rich. They controlled what was exported, what was made, and the labor force. The government used people for cheap labor in order to make money. The middle class in Latin America has tended to favor military coups in times of crisis but elections when the dust clears.
The Market Orientation is a philosophy that focuses on the discovery and fuffilment of the needs and desires of customers through a product mix.
Neoliberal reforms main objective was to boost economic efficiency and jump- start economic growth without which countries in the region would not be able to meet their foreign debt obligations. However many people did not believe that these Latin American countries were not capable of bringing their country from being poor.