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Stabilization, Destabilization, and the Popular Classes in Nicaragua, 1979-1988

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2022

Richard Stahler-Sholk
Richard Stahler-Sholk*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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The political tensions surrounding economic stabilization in revolutionary Nicaragua between 1979 and 1988 will be examined in this article. A review of the Nicaraguan case reveals that the Sandinista model of a mixed economy (presupposing at least simple reproduction of the capitalist, small producer, and state sectors) with multiclass “national unity” created a series of demands that were increasingly difficult to reconcile with defense priorities and longer-term goals for socioeconomic transformation. After 1981, access to external finance became more restrictive, the payoff horizon for investment projects began to lengthen, and destabilization intensified. Failure to assess these internal and external tensions realistically contributed to inflationary pressures and de facto shifts in income distribution, which at times undermined the consolidation of revolutionary hegemony and required reconsidering alliance strategies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , 1990 , pp. 55 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © 1990 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

This article draws on the author's work as a research associate at the Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (CRIES) in Managua from 1984 to 1989. Research for this article was supported by a grant from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa, Canada. Travel funds from the Ministry of Development Cooperation of Norway permitted the presentation of an earlier version at the Congress of the Latin American Studies Association in New Orleans, 17–19 March 1988. The author is grateful to Laura Enriquez, Mario Arana, Gerardo Timossi, Trevor Evans, and the anonymous LAR reviewers for their helpful comments.

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