Final Exam

The final exam will be a take-home exam, due Tuesday, April 29th, by 5 p.m. It will consist of seven essay questions from the review questions of Chapters 6-12 of the textbook (one for each chapter). As with the take-home essays from the midterm exam, you must indicate the page or pages from the textbook where the relevant information for your answer can be found. You may study together, but you must submit your own work, in your own words, on TurnItIn.com.

...And the questions are:

1. Why did reforms work in Central Europe but not in Russia?
2. Can China still be described as Communist? (back up your answer)
3. Why does India hold together at all?
4. Has Mexico become a true democracy? How can you tell?
5. What factors made Brazil democratic? Will it last?
6. Why doesn't badly fragmented Nigeria just fall apart?
7. What factors brought Iran's Islamic Revolution?

Nigeria (plus the Social Progress Index)

The article we reviewed in Wednesday's class referred to the United State's ranking in the Social Progress Index (16th out of 132 countries). Please check out the Social Progress Imperative's website to see what is being measured and why it matters. In addition to writing about Nigeria in your next blog post (due Monday before class), I'd like you to list your country's rank and its areas of relative strength and weakness. Anything interesting or surprising?

Brazil (and Mexico continued)

We will start to explore Brazil and continue to examine Mexico in Monday's class. Mexico and Brazil make a really interesting contrast.

Please be sure that you are familiar with the key terms and can answer CORRECTLY the review questions at the end of the chapter. Monday's quiz will probably be on a key term rather than a review question. Your next blog post is due before class on Monday, and your comment on an Mexico post should already be up.

Here are a couple of thought-provoking links: "Does Brazil Have the Answer?" and "Brazil's Girl Power."