Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua
：World Making in the Tropics
Publication subTitle ：World Making in the Tropics
Author： Consuelo Cruz;
Publisher： Cambridge University Press
Publication year： 2005
E-ISBN: 9781316939598
P-ISBN(Paperback): 9780521842037
P-ISBN(Hardback): 9780521842037
Subject： D Political and Legal
Keyword： 政治、法律
Language： ENG
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Description
This book explores the reasons behind the many failed attempts to build stable democracies in Latin America.
There have been many attempts to build stable democracies in Latin America, and nearly as many cruel reversals. The reasons are not well understood. Based on original historical documents and contemporary interviews with prominent politicians in democratically stable Costa Rica and in often-violent Nicaragua, this book explores those reasons.
There have been many attempts to build stable democracies in Latin America, and nearly as many cruel reversals. The reasons are not well understood. Based on original historical documents and contemporary interviews with prominent politicians in democratically stable Costa Rica and in often-violent Nicaragua, this book explores those reasons.
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 This book is based on a wealth of original historical documents and contemporary interviews with prominent political actors and analyses five centuries of political history in these paradigmatic cases of outstanding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.
"Cruz has written a magisterial work that truly goes beyond the countries under the microscope to a level of theoretical sophistication that should revolutionize the study of political culture and its influence on determining varying political outcomes. This book should be read and reread by historians, political scientists, Latin Americanists, and most of all, policy makers. Essential."
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"This well-researched and well-argued book is an important addition to the literature on economic and political development, not just for the two cases examined, but for the larger context of the developing world. This attempt to re-situate political culture as a centrally important explanatory variable adds a fresh perspective to current analyses, and Consuelo Cruz's way of conceptualizing political culture as a dynamic, interactive variable that is engaged with other factors (economic, institutional) makes for a sophisticated and novel analysis ... An important read for those interested in new approaches to studying comparative politics."
-Bruce M. Wilson, University of Central Florida, Political Science Quarterly
"Political Culture and Institutional Development in Nicaragua and Costa Rica: World-Making in the Tropics is a bold and beautifully written book. Consuelo Cruz's innovative interpretation of culture, colonialism, and norma
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