Mid-twentieth-century Latin America: “Populism”, Labour Movements, and Nationalism
Lecture slides 2023-4
Questions:
What was corporatism? What was populism?
Were 'populist' rulers popular, and if so, with whom?
How did 'populist' governments try to incorporate the demands of organised labour? How successful were they?
What was the relationship between Peronism, welfare, and feminism in Argentina?
What was the Estado Novo (Brazil)?
Did Getulio Vargas deserve his title of "Father of the Poor"?
How did populism and nationalism affect your "adopted" country? How does it compare to the cases of Brazil and Argentina?
Required Reading
Please read BOTH of these (very short) primary sources. Then choose ONE of the two secondary readings.
Primary Sources:
- Juan Peron, Bill of Workers Rights,1947. (Translation in the MRC)
- Interview with a group of members and leaders of Argentine trade unions, January 28 1947. MRC.
Secondary Sources:
- Donna J Guy, Women Build the Welfare State: Performing Charity and Creating Rights in Argentina, 1880-1955 (Durham: Duke, 2009), chapter 6, At the Crossroads of Change," pp. 151-185 [e-book at library]
- Robert M Levine, Father of the Poor? Vargas and his Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) chapter 3, “The Estado Novo,” pp 50-74 (see Library Scans page)
Further Reading
- Primary source: “Ordinary People,” in The Brazil Reader, eds. Robert Levine and John Crocitti (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999)pp 206-24
- James, Daniel, “October 17th and 18th, 1945: Mass Protest, Peronism, and the Argentine Working Class.” Journal of Social History, 21, 1988, 441-61.
- Ciria, Alberto. “Flesh and Fantasy: The Many Faces of Evita (and Juan Perón).” Latin American Research Review, 18 (1983), pp. 150-65.
- Conniff, Michael L, ed., Latin American Populism (University of New Mexico Press, 1982).
- Di Tella, Guido. Argentina under Perón, 1973-1976: The nation’s experience with a labour-based government. Macmillan, 1983.
- Fontes, Paulo. Migration and the Making of Industrial Sao Paulo. Duke University Press, 2016. "Introduction." [E-book @Library]
- Fraser, Nicholas. Eva Perón. New York: Norton, 1985.
- Dan Hancox, "Why Ernesto Laclau is the intellectual figurehead for Syriza and Podemos", The Guardian, 9 February, 2015.
- Pike, Fred B. The new corporatism: social-political structures in the Iberian world. University of Notre-Dame Press, 1974.
- Plotkin, Mariano Ben. Mañana es San Perón: A Cultural History of Perón’s Argentina. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2003.
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Mary Roldan. Blood and Fire: la Violencia in Antioquia, Colombia 1946-1953 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2002)
- Ernesto Seman. Ambassadors of the Working Class: Argentina's International Labor Activists and Cold War Democracy in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017.
- Oliveira Vianna, “Why the Estado Novo?”, in The Brazil Reader, eds R Levine and J Crocitti, pp 184-6
- Joel Wolfe, “Guest Editor's Introduction: Getulio Vargas and his Enduring Legacy for Brazil,” Luso-Brazilian Review, 31-2 (1994): 1-3.
- Oxford Handbook of Latin American History: chapter on labour history [available online @ Library]