Urban and Environmental Policy Program

Urban & Environmental Policy Program
Fall 2007

Professor Robert Gottlieb
Ext. 2712; gottlieb@oxy.edu
Office hours: Monday, 10:30-11:15am, 1:30-3:00pm
                    Wednesday, 10:30-11:15am, 1:00-2:00pm

UEP 410: Advanced Seminar in Urban and Environmental Policy:
Globalization and its Critics; Plus Senior Comps!

Monday-Wednesday 11:30-12:55; UEPI Conference Room

Background to the Seminar

The advanced seminar in Urban and Environmental Policy (UEP 410) is organized around two sets of activities.  The first involves participation through the readings, seminar presentations, discussions, speakers, and films on major political, public policy, and planning issues. The second involves work on senior projects -- the two-semester research and writing effort that should be considered for UEP majors the culmination of one’s academic work at Occidental. The work on the senior project during the UEP 410 fall semester has direct bearing on the work undertaken in the spring in UEP 411; that is, the work on the project in the fall is crucial to the overall process of completing a strong comps project. Getting started on the comps project in fall semester (i.e., picking a topic, developing your research question and hypothesis, deciding whether to have a client, and getting started on the research) is crucial. It is especially important that you identify a subject that you will feel passionate about and be willing to spend the time and the intellectual and emotional investment you’ll need to make if it’s to be a meaningful and valuable process. To be engaged this way can be enormously rewarding and can provide real world skills and a sense of commitment that will stay with you after graduation. The advanced seminar component of the class can also be valuable by serving as a culmination of the ways in which we think about and explore the materials regarding the policy and political and cultural and economic and technical issues that we’ve been addressing in UEP courses. This year’s focus for the seminar component of the class will be on issues of globalization, or globalization and its critics. This includes seminar sections on NAFTA, maquiladoras, and the border; immigration; the movement of goods (e.g., from China to Wal-Mart through the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach); and global economies, global impacts, and globalization-related social movements.

The class time on Mondays will be divided into segments.  These will include discussions, presentations, and short writing assignments on the topics; presentations by speakers; and presentation groups. The Wednesday class will focus on the organization and development of the comps project, including selecting the topic, exploring whether you’ll want a client, identifying your research question, developing a research plan and time line, and beginning the research, including the semester paper which should become part of the overall comps.  We will also have sessions evaluating prior comps or thesis projects, presentations by alums on the comps process, and skill-related sessions (research strategies; interviews and surveys; exploring census data, etc.).

Topics and Readings

For the seminar aspect of the class, there will be four different areas and related topics, with readings, discussions, and presentation sessions organized around each area.  These include:

1. Global Economies, Global Impacts, and Local and Global Movements (with a focus on globalization’s impacts, the development of global economies, and the emergence of globalization’s critics).

2. NAFTA and the Border Economy (with a focus on the maquiladora border plants, the NAFTA treaty and its subsequent Central and South American versions, and the politics, environment, economy, and culture of the border)

3. Immigration – Crossing Borders (with a focus on the relationship between globalization and immigration, the history of migration patterns, particularly from Mexico, the hothouse politics of immigration, and the issues of immigrant values and rights)

4. Movement of Goods (with a focus on how goods get from different places; e.g. how a $9.95 toy might move from China to a Wal-Mart in Chicago via the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach and the trucks and trains that move through L.A. to their destination points -- and the community, health, environmental, and economic impacts that result).

While these topics cover a lot of territory, the readings and the discussion/presentation sessions should provide some broad conceptual knowledge about the key economic, cultural, environmental, and political issues associated with the relentless but contested forces of globalization.

Each student will be assigned to a different group of five members each during the course of the semester to lead the discussions or engage in actions related to two of the session areas (with each session consisting of two sets of topics), although each of the discussion sessions should involve the active participation of the whole class. A topic group could focus primarily on the readings and frame class discussions around those readings. Other groups might want to use their topic as a form of engagement: for example, participation in the planning for a major international conference in L.A. at the end of November on the goods movement and globalization issues. Each group team will select two of the topical areas in which they’ll present during the course of the semester. Everyone, of course, will be encouraged to do all the readings, but it will be the responsibility of the teams to organize their presentation sessions and solicit discussion as the seminar leaders for that segment of the class, using the readings or the actions they stimulate as part of the discussion. I’ll also assign four short writing assignments related to the readings and topics. Students will have the flexibility to decide if they’d like to experiment with different writing formats for the short papers, although they could also simply develop a more traditional short essay paper as well. Possible formats could include (though are not limited to): a 700 word op ed or blog entry; a two-three page concept paper for a grant proposal; a two-three page memo to others in an organization on how to approach the topic/issue areas; a two-three page policy brief; a literature review; or even a personal narrative. I’d still want the content to reflect knowledge about the topic and make sure to reference the readings.

For several of the topics, there will be a speaker elaborating on the themes associated with the topic.  Speaker sessions should be lively and interactive. We may also have films related to one or more of the topical areas.

Developing the Senior Projects

This is a crucial segment of the class, as important as the work to be developed in UEP 411 which will be exclusively dedicated to comps.  There will be several hard deadlines established for the development of the senior project during the fall semester, with a paragraph, short memo, or outline of the work due by the dates listed below.  These include:

Selection of Project Topic (deadline October 8)

Selection of possible research questions (deadline: October 22);

Initial bibliography (deadline: November 14);

Winter break work plan and research strategy (deadline: December 3);

Presentations of research to date (December 3 and December 5);

Completion of research paper/section of comps (deadline: December 10). 

We will devote class time on Wednesdays for group and individual discussions on the process and substance of the research for your senior projects.  Several sessions will involve discussions regarding various research methods (e.g., interviewing; census data analysis, etc.) We will also discuss the mechanics of pulling together a successful senior project, including a review of other comps projects. Each group team member will be responsible for analyzing and critiquing an earlier comps as part of this review. There will also be a presentation/discussion session led by each student concerning the topic that they have selected, the research questions that need to be addressed, and the policy issues involved. The work plan to be developed by the end of the semester should provide a detailed time line, an initial literature search and identification of the research sources and materials that will be used. The final research paper should be directly related to your senior project.  It could be the introductory chapter of your overall senior project, which would include a preliminary literature review and discussion of the broad themes and research questions. It could also take the form of a “work in progress,” but this work in progress must include some substantive work. The presentations should provide an overview of the research paper/work in progress paper.

Grading Criteria

Final grades will reflect the work in each of the segments.  These include: participation in group teams, readings, presentation sessions, class discussions and development of the senior project, including meeting deadlines – 40%; writing assignments – 30%; final paper – 30%.

Class Organization

I’ve organized each class session by date according to topic, readings, debate sessions, and senior project sessions.  Mondays will be generally dedicated to the seminar topics; Wednesdays to the senior project. My office hours will also be on Mondays (10:30-11:15 and 1:30-3) and Wednesdays (10:30-11:15 and 1-2), but I will be on campus and available to meet with you most other days if you need to see me and we are able to work out a time.  Please feel free to contact me above and beyond any formal office visit, particularly on the progress of the senior project.

Readings and Topics.   

Session and Topics: Global Economies, Global Impacts, and Globalization’s Critics

Session #1  August 29-September 24

Readings:

            “Globalization’s Gains Come with a Price,” Bob Davis, John Lyons, and Andrew Batson, Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2007

            “It’s a Flat World, After All,” Thomas Friedman, New York Times, April 3, 2005

“Expanding Trade, Protecting Values,” Bill Clinton, The New Democrat, January 1, 2000

 “Costly Trade with China,” Robert E. Scott, Economic Policy Institute, Briefing Paper No. 188, May 2, 2007, available at http://www.epi.org/briefingpapers/188/bp188.pdf

 “Letter from China: The Last ‘Competitive Advantage,’” Jehangir Pocha, The Nation, June 4, 2007

 “Cutting Here, but Hiring Over There,” Steve Lohr, New York Times, June 24, 2005

 Alex Pham, “Local Reporting is Outsourced to India,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2007

 “Town Sees Nothing Sweet in Chocolate Plant Closing,” Steve Chawkins, Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2007

 “Globalization is Doing a World of Good for U.S.,” James Flanigan, Los Angeles Times, April 24, 2004

 “The Myths of Globalization Exposed: Advancing toward Living Democracy,” Vandana Shiva, Chapter 9 in Worlds Apart: Globalization and the Environment, James Gustave Speth, pp. 141-154

 “Plantation Workers Look for Justice in the North,” T. Christian Miller, Los Angeles Times, May 27, 2007

 “Globalization in Every Loaf,” Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times, June 16, 2007

Topic #A: Globalization Economies and Globalization Impacts

Topic #B: Globalization’s Defenders and its Critics

Short Paper #1: Due – September 26

Topic A and B Presentations: September 24

Session and Topics: NAFTA, Maquiladoras, and the Border

Session #2  October 1- October 22

Readings:

 “NAFTA: Who Got What?” (Chapter 7) and “Toward, and Beyond, a Continental Democracy,” (Chapter 12), Jeff Faux, The Global Class War, pp. 126-154 and 235-253

 “Promoting Free Trade Really Isn’t Free,” Bob Filner and Diane Takvorian, San Diego Union-Tribune, December 17, 2004, available at Environmental Health Coalition web site at http://www.environmentalhealth.org/BECJ.OpEdSDUT.12.17.04.htm (You might want to surf the EHC web site as well)

 “Mexico Confronts Sudden Surge in Obesity,” Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times, June 29, 2005

 “Communities Without Borders,” David Bacon, The Nation, October 24, 2005

Topic C: NAFTA and its Aftermath

Topic D: Border Plants/Maquiladoras

Short Paper #2: Due October 24

Topic C and D Presentations: October 22

Session and Topics: Immigration—Crossing Borders

Session #3  October 29-November 12

Readings

“America’s Immigration ‘Problem’” (Chapter 3), Saskia Sassen, Globalization and its Discontents, pp. 31-53

“Nation and Empire: Hierarchies of Citizenship in the New Global Order,” Stephen Castles, International Politics, June 2005

 “The Culture of Immigration,” and “Connections to the Land: Food and Immigrants,” Excerpts from Reinventing Los Angeles: Nature and Community in the Global City, pp. 255-267 (Chapter 7) and pp. 300-307 (Chapter 8) Robert Gottlieb, 2007

 “The Hispanic Challenge,” Samuel Huntington, Foreign Policy, March/April 2004

“Migrant Studies Counter Negative Images,” Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times, February 28, 2007

Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America, Mae Ngai, (Chapter 1: Introduction)

“How Grandma Got Legal,” Mai Ngai, Los Angeles Times, May 16, 2006

“Demographics and the Golden Door,” Richard Alba, Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2007

“Anxiety in the Land of the Anti-Immigrant Crusader,” Kirk Johnson, New York Times, June 24, 2007

Political Debates on Immigration Legislation

Topic #E: Immigration Politics

Topic #F: Social Change Across Borders?

Short Paper #3: Due November 14

Topic E & F Presentations November 12

Session and Topics: Movement of Goods

Session #4  November 19-November 30

Readings

“Movement of Goods” and “Modesta Avila Brigades,” Excerpts from Reinventing Los Angeles, pp. 276-283 (Chapter 7) and pp. 312-319 (Chapter 8)

“Ports in a Storm,” Dinesh Sharma in Environmental Health Perspectives, April 2006

             “Ports Complex Plans to Grow Bigger, Cleaner,” Louis Sahagun, Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2007

             “Exporters Making Waves over Ports’ Clean-Air Plan,” Ronald White, Los Angeles Times, June 1, 2007

             “Port Drivers Steer Toward Clean-Truck Program,” Louis Sahagun and Ronald White, Los Angeles Times, June 6, 2006

             The Impact Project Binder (Prepared for Nov. 30-December 1 Gathering)

Short Paper: Due Nov. 28

Topics G & H: Participation, Outreach and Planning for Goods Movement/Globalization Conference – Nov. 30-Dec. 1

COMPS WORKS IN PROGRESS/RESEARCH PAPER PRESENTATIONS – Dec. 3-5

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