Arturo J.Cruz, Jr argues that political learning, trust-building, and institutional innovation by political elites broke Nicaragua's post-colonial cycle of anarchy and petty despotism, leaving in its place an increasingly inclusive oligarchic democracy that made possible state-led economic development for the next thirty years. Subsequent economic development gave rise to new social groups and localist power centres that remained politically disparate, and in turn forged an outsiders' coalition to bring down the Republic.

This book is an attempt to treat in a compact and objective manner the dominant social, political, economic, and national security aspects of contemporary Nicaraguan society.

A new appraisal of the relationship between the Presidency and Congress in Argentina over the first two decades of its democratic regime. Mariana Llanos uses the processes of privatization and state reform in Argentina to re-assess the performance, functions and stature of these institutions as the country embarked on the programme of change. A valuable contribution to the debate on the development of political institutions in Latin America.

Why do some countries progress while others stagnate? Why does adversity strengthen some countries and weaken others? Indeed, in this era of unprecedented movement of people, goods, and ideas, just what constitutes a nation-state? Forrest Colburn and Arturo Cruz suggest how fundamental these questions are through an exploration of the evolution of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica over the last quarter of a century, a period of intriguing, often confounding, paradoxes in Central America's development. Offering an elegant defense of empiricism, Colburn and Cruz explore the roles of geography and political choice in constructing nations and states. Countries are shown to be unique: there are a daunting number of variables. There is causality, but not the kind that can be revealed in the laboratory or on the blackboard. Liberalism—today defined as democracy and unfettered markets—may be in vogue, but it has no inherent determinants. Democracy and market economies, when welded to the messy realities of individual countries, are compatible with many different outcomes. The world is more pluralistic in both causes and effects than either academic theories or political rhetoric suggest.

General study on Nicaragua - covers its historical setting, geography, social structure, population dynamics, living conditions, educational system, political system, international relations, mass media, agriculture, industry, armed forces and administration of justice, etc., and reviews trends in its politics and economic and social development. Bibliography pp. 351 to 366, diagrams, graphs, maps and statistical tables.

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