A comprehensive overview of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, this book offers an interdisciplinary study of the domestic and foreign challenges that faced the Sandinista government during its ten years in power. Based on extensive research in Nicaragua during the revolution, the essays examine important aspects of both the revolution and the U.S.-orchestrated counterrevolution that brought it to an end. After an introduction to the historical background of the revolutionary period, contributors offer an overview of specific groups and institutions within the revolution, such as women, grass-roots organizations, and the armed forces, and provide a balanced assessment of Sandinista public policy and performance in such areas as agrarian reform, health care, education, and housing. The impact and implications of the contra war, financed by the United States, are also analyzed, as well as efforts made over the years to promote a negotiated peace.

Since the revolution in 1979, Nicaragua has faced economic dislocation, a growing debt, chronic hard currency shortages, a counter-revolutionary war, economic and diplomatic pressure from the US, and regional isolation. In spite of these challenging problems, the Sandinista leadership, maintaining a broad array of international contacts, continues

A detailed examination of the roots of revolution and counterrevolution in Central America and the Caribbean, this book draws on the research of an interdisciplinary team of noted scholars. The authors give special attention to the institutional and structural causes of stability and instability—in particular, the traditional role of the United States; the current economic crisis; the changing role of the Roman Catholic church; the influence of the military and security forces, the oligarchy, and the business sector; the problems of instituting socioeconomic reform; the politics of subsistence; and the revolutionary opposition. Following the thematic chapters, a country-by-country focus is employed to assess the situations in El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, and Jamaica, and a section devoted to the international dimensions of the crisis looks at Mexican, Soviet, Cuban, and U.S. policies toward the region, The editors' concluding chapter explores prospects for the future of this troubled area.

The revolution in Nicaragua was unique in that a large percentage of the combatants were women. The Role of Female Combatants in the Nicaraguan Revolution and Counter Revolutionary War is a study of these women and those who fought in the Contra counter revolution on the Atlantic Coast. This book is a qualitative study based on 85 interviews with female ex-combatants in the revolution and counter revolution from the 1960s to the end of the 1980s, as well as field observations in Nicaragua and the autonomous regions of the Atlantic Coast. It explores the reasons why women fought, the sacrifices they made, their treatment by male combatants, and their insights into the impact of the revolution and counter-revolution on today’s Nicaragua. The analytical approach draws from political psychology, social identity dynamics such as nationalism and indigenous identities, and the role of liberation theology in the willingness of the female revolutionaries to risk their lives. Researchers and students of Gender Studies, Latin American and Latino Studies, and Political History will find this an illuminating account of the Nicaraguan Revolution and counter revolution, which until now has been rarely shared.

This interdisciplinary study breaks new ground by exploring relations between Protestants (mainly Pentecostals) and the Sandinistas in revolutionary Nicaragua, which to date have received scant attention. It challenges the view that most Protestants supported the Sandinistas (in fact, the majority vigorously opposed them) and establishes why many believed Nicaragua was heading towards communism or totalitarianism. Meanwhile, the Sandinistas expressed irritation with Pentecostalism’s otherworldliness and support for Israel. Pentecostals were harassed, even brutally repressed in the northern highlands, leading many to join the Contras. That a minority of Protestants supported the Sandinistas caused further problems. Pentecostals and Sandinistas were ideological rivals offering an alternative vision to the poor: revolution or revival. As Pentecostalism exploded, a collision between the two was inevitable.

For Central America, the last third of the 20th century was a time of dramatic change in which most countries shifted from dictatorships to formal political democracy. This study demonstrates how revolt and revolution served as the motors of political change in Central America. The book examines the various ways in which democratic transition has taken place - all of which have been distinct from countries in South America, where democratization was relatively sudden and peaceful. It analyzes the major forces shaping change in the region and provides the recent political history of all six Central American countries: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama. Each country's particular transition should add to the reader's understanding of democratization.

Why the world’s most resilient dictatorships are products of violent revolution Revolution and Dictatorship explores why dictatorships born of social revolution—such as those in China, Cuba, Iran, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam—are extraordinarily durable, even in the face of economic crisis, large-scale policy failure, mass discontent, and intense external pressure. Few other modern autocracies have survived in the face of such extreme challenges. Drawing on comparative historical analysis, Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way argue that radical efforts to transform the social and geopolitical order trigger intense counterrevolutionary conflict, which initially threatens regime survival, but ultimately fosters the unity and state-building that supports authoritarianism. Although most revolutionary governments begin weak, they challenge powerful domestic and foreign actors, often bringing about civil or external wars. These counterrevolutionary wars pose a threat that can destroy new regimes, as in the cases of Afghanistan and Cambodia. Among regimes that survive, however, prolonged conflicts give rise to a cohesive ruling elite and a powerful and loyal coercive apparatus. This leads to the downfall of rival organizations and alternative centers of power, such as armies, churches, monarchies, and landowners, and helps to inoculate revolutionary regimes against elite defection, military coups, and mass protest—three principal sources of authoritarian breakdown. Looking at a range of revolutionary and nonrevolutionary regimes from across the globe, Revolution and Dictatorship shows why governments that emerge from violent conflict endure.

The international law on the use of force is one of the oldest branches of international law. It is an area twinned with the emergence of international law as a concept in itself, and which sees law and politics collide. The number of armed conflicts is equal only to the number of methodological approaches used to describe them. Many violent encounters are well known. The Kosovo Crisis in 1999 and the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 spring easily to the minds of most scholars and academics, and gain extensive coverage in this text. Other conflicts, including the Belgian operation in Stanleyville, and the Ethiopian Intervention in Somalia, are often overlooked to our peril. Ruys and Corten's expert-written text compares over sixty different instances of the use of cross border force since the adoption of the UN Charter in 1945, from all out warfare to hostile encounters between individual units, targeted killings, and hostage rescue operations, to ask a complex question. How much authority does the power of precedent really have in the law of the use of force?

Understanding Terrorism: Challenges, Perspectives, and Issues offers a comprehensive, interdisciplinary exploration of domestic and international terrorism that helps students develop the knowledge and skills needed to critically assess the underlying causes of modern terrorist violence. The Seventh Edition includes new or expanded discussions of critical topics in terrorism, such as the evolution of right-wing extremism in Western countries, as well as analysis of recent events and updated terrorist tactics, weapons, and methods. Included with this title: The password-protected Instructor Resource Site (formally known as SAGE Edge) offers access to all text-specific resources, including a test bank and editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides.

In this uniquely wide-ranging book, David Craven investigates the extraordinary impact of three Latin American revolutions on the visual arts and on cultural policy. The three great upheavals - in Mexico (1910-40), in Cuba (1959-89), and in Nicaragua (1979-90) - were defining moments in twentieth-century life in the Americas. Craven discusses the structural logic of each movement's artistic project - by whom, how, and for whom artworks were produced -- and assesses their legacies. In each case, he demonstrates how the consequences of the revolution reverberated in the arts and cultures far beyond national borders. The book not only examines specific artworks originating from each revolution's attempt to deal with the challenge of 'socializing the arts,' but also the engagement of the working classes in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua with a tradition of the fine arts made newly accessible through social transformation. Craven considers how each revolution dealt with the pressing problem of creating a 'dialogical art' -- one that reconfigures the existing artistic resource rather than one that just reproduces a populist art to keep things as they were. In addition, the author charts the impact on the revolutionary processes of theories of art and education, articulated by such thinkers as John Dewey and Paulo Freire. The book provides a fascinating new view of the Latin American revolutionaries -- from artists to political leaders -- who defined art as a fundamental force for the transformation of society and who bequeathed new ways of thinking about the relations among art, ideology, and class, within a revolutionary process.