Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua
World Making in the Tropics

This book explores the reasons behind the many failed attempts to build stable democracies in Latin America.

Consuelo Cruz (Author)

9780521120401, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 20 August 2009

304 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.45 kg

"Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua is a masterpiece that combines new insights of political culture theory construction with an immense trove of historical facts about the two countries. Cruz shows a very rare creative ability in mixing a rich historical narrative with a new understanding of the role of political culture, which involves normative schemes, rhetoric, and imaginative possibilities...The analysis and conclusions add to our understanding of why Latin American nations, as a rule, seem unable to overcome the obstacles that would allow democratic consolidation in this region."
- Marcello Baquero, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, Latin American Politics and Society

Democracy's checkered past and uncertain future in the developing world still puzzles and fascinates. In Latin America, attempts to construct resilient democracies have been as pervasive as reversals have been cruel. This book is based on a wealth of original historical documents and contemporary interviews with prominent political actors and analyses five centuries of political history in these paradigmatic cases of outstanding democratic success and abysmal failure. It shows that while factors highlighted by standard explanations matter, it is political culture that configures economic development, institutional choices and political pacts in ways that directly affect both democracy's chances and its quality. But it also claims that political culture is a dynamic combination of rational and normative imperatives that define actors' views of the permissible, shape their sense of realism, structure political struggles and legitimate the resulting distribution of power.

1. Theoretical overview
2. Manichean identities and normative scheming: origins
3. Orphans of Empire: constructing national identities
4. Post-colonial paths: rhetorical strategies and frames
5. Costa Rica: possibility mongers
6. Nicaragua: hybrid arbitration
7. Tropical histories: paradise and Hell on Earth
8. Transition: familiar novelties.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]