"In a century of horrors, Guatemala from 1954 to the present has been a bloody scene of some of the worst horrors—and the United States has been deeply involved. Drawing upon 30 years of experience in Central America, hundreds of interviews, and analyses of the vast documentary materials, Susanne Jonas masterfully explains not only how the Guatemalan tragedies, the U.S. involvement, and the stumbling 1990s peace process developed. She also raises fundamental questions about the badly misunderstood and much over-hyped 'democratic transition' supposedly occurring in Guatemala and elsewhere in the region." —Walter LaFeber Cornell University, author of Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America

Understanding Central America explains how domestic, global, political and economic forces have shaped rebellion and regime change in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras throughout their histories, during the often-turbulent 1970s and since. The text provides students a comprehensive coverage of Central America, political science, and international relations. The authors explain the origins and development of the region's political conflicts, their resolution and ongoing political change. This Sixth Edition provides the most up-to-date information on the recent political changes in each of the five countries presented.

During the Cold War, U.S. intervention in Latin American politics, economics, and society grew in scope and complexity, with diplomatic legacies evident in today's hemispheric policies. Development became a key form of intervention as government officials and experts from the United States and Latin America believed that development could foster hemispheric solidarity and security. In parts of Latin America, its implementation was especially intricate because recipients of these programs were diverse Indigenous peoples with their own politics, economics, and cultures. Contrary to project planners' expectations, Indigenous beneficiaries were not passive recipients but actively engaged with development interventions and, in the process, redefined racialized ideas about Indigeneity. Sarah Foss illustrates how this process transpired in Cold War Guatemala, spanning democratic revolution, military coups, and genocidal civil war. Drawing on previously unused sources such as oral histories, anthropologists' field notes, military records, municipal and personal archives, and a private photograph collection, Foss analyzes the uses and consequences of development and its relationship to ideas about race from multiple perspectives, emphasizing its historical significance as a form of intervention during the Cold War.

In this timely and provocative study, William I. Robinson challenges received wisdom on Central America. He starts with an exposition on the new global capitalism. Then, drawing on a wide range of historical documentation, interviews, and social science research, he proceeds to show how capitalist globalization has thoroughly transformed the region, disrupting the conventional pattern of revolutionary upheaval, civil wars, and pacification, and ushering in instead a new transnational model of economy and society. Beyond his focus on Central America, Robinson provides a critical framework for understanding development and social change in other regions of the world in the age of globalization. Demonstrating how the very forces of capitalism have brought into being new social agents and political actors unlikely to acquiesce in the face of the emerging order, Transnational Conflicts shows why the Isthmus, along with other regions, is likely to return to the headlines in the near future.

As Oliver Richmond explains, there is a level to peacemaking that operates in the realm of dialogue, declarations, symbols and rituals. But after all this pomp and circumstance is where the reality of security, development, politics, economics, identity, and culture figure in; conflict, cooperation, and reconciliation are at their most vivid at the local scale. Thus local peace operations are crucial to maintaining order on the ground even in the most violent contexts. However, as Richmond argues, such local capacity to build peace from the inside is generally left unrecognized, and it has been largely ignored in the policy and scholarly literature on peacebuilding. In Peace and Political Order, Richmond looks at peace processes as they scale up from local to transnational efforts to consider how to build a lasting and productive peace. He takes a comparative and expansive look at peace efforts in conflict situations in countries around the world to consider what local voices might suggest about the inadequacy of peace processes engineered at the international level. As well, he explores how local workers act to modify or resist peace processes headed by international NGOs, and to what degree local actors have enjoyed success in the peace process (and how they have affected the international peace process).

Why do warring parties turn to United Nations peacekeeping and peacemaking even when they think it will fail? Dayal asks why UN peacekeeping survived its early catastrophes in Somalia, Rwanda, and the Balkans, and how this survival should make us reconsider how peacekeeping works. She makes two key arguments: first, she argues the UN's central role in peacemaking and peacekeeping worldwide means UN interventions have structural consequences – what the UN does in one conflict can shift the strategies, outcomes, and options available to negotiating parties in other conflicts. Second, drawing on interviews, archival research, and process-traced peace negotiations in Rwanda and Guatemala, Dayal argues warring parties turn to the UN even when they have little faith in peacekeepers' ability to uphold peace agreements – and even little actual interest in peace – because its involvement in negotiation processes provides vital, unique tactical, symbolic, and post-conflict reconstruction benefits only the UN can offer.

The Political Handbook of the World 2022-2023 provides timely, thorough, and accurate political information, with more in-depth coverage of current political controversies than any other reference guide. The updated 2022-2023 edition continues to be the most authoritative source for finding complete facts and analysis on each country′s governmental and political makeup. Tom Lansford has compiled in one place more than 200 entries on countries and territories throughout the world, this volume is renowned for its extensive coverage of all major and minor political parties and groups in each political system. It also provides names of key ambassadors and international memberships of each country, plus detailed profiles of more than 30 intergovernmental organizations and UN agencies. And this update will aim to include coverage of current events, issues, crises, and controversies from the course of the last two years.