Contenu du sommaire : Nicaragua : sandinismo 2.0 ?

In the post-Sandinista period, Nicaragua has adjusted to the new terms of a neoliberal economy by turning to tourism development as a leading industry. As the nation is refashioned as a safe and desirable tourist destination, efforts have been made to conceal evidence of the recent revolutionary past that might discourage visitors from traveling to the country. Nevertheless, there are indications that selected images and memories of revolution are making a reappearance and may prove marketable for tourism. This article argues that the twin projects of neoliberalism and nationalism may be served by this seemingly contradictory process. The Nicaraguan case offers an example of how the past figures in the remaking of postrevolutionary nations for tourism in the era of globalization.

For the last several decades, a global ideological struggle has been taking place between organizations and institutions that promote women's rights and a parallel countermovement of conservative and religious groups defending so-called “family values”. The recent political struggle over gender-violence law in Nicaragua is a microcosm of these dynamics. In 2012, the Nicaraguan government passed its most comprehensive law on gender-based violence to date (Ley 779). However, following a backlash by local conservative religious groups, many of the law's major provisions were substantially weakened. This article analyzes how President Daniel Ortega's initial support for Ley 779 was undone by the conservative outcry against it. The author argues that the seeming reversal of Ortega and his allies on Ley 779 is better understood as a continuation of Ortega's longstanding tensions with the country's feminist movement and his alliance with conservative religious groups. The implications of this alliance go well beyond the particulars of Ley 779. Through his suppression of dissent and integration of religious ideologies into state institutions, Ortega's actions have created a patrimonial-authoritarian state characterized by the personalization of patriarchal authority that severely undermines women's rights in Nicaragua.

In this article we aim to contribute to the analysis of the relationship between neosandinismo and emerging social movements in Nicaragua, drawing in particular on the events that occurred between 16-19 June 2013, when members of the National Unit for Senior Citizens (UNAM) occupied the facilities of the Nicaraguan National Institute of Social Security (INSS) after a five-year struggle to demand the restitution of their right to a pension. During these events an intergenerational alliance was created between the members of the UNAM and university students who self-convened through social media by means of the hashtag #OcupaINSS following violent police repression of the occupation. Our analysis focuses on deconstructing and making apparent neosandinismo's logic of social control and the main tactics that it uses to deal with social protests at the national context.

This article explores the contemporary relation between Nicaragua's governing party, the FSLN, and social movements by analyzing a paradigmatic case: the protest movement against the plans to build an Interoceanic canal through the country. By employing the perspective of framing and counterframing, the article analyses how different actors frame their promises and predictions regarding the project's possible consequences. Special emphasis is put on the Nicaraguan government's strategies of argumentation, threatening, and co-optation. The article shows how the government took the decision to build an Interoceanic Canal in a top-down manner and refused to respond to sceptics and critics of the Canal plans. The FSLN first ignored, then tried to control the movement, which emerged autonomously from its party structure and networks. As these attempts failed, it first repressed before then trying to coopt (different parts) of the protest movement.

More than fifteen year after the democratic transition, the Chilean governments have to face considerable waves of student protests, unprecedented since the large 1980s demonstrations against Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. We propose to report on those protest events putting them back into their context, to understand the importance of the generational issue in the renewal of the Chilean student protest. The diversity of the strategies of action put in place by the students reveals the nature of the tactical evaluations made by a very heterogeneous movement.

This article analyzes how catastrophes were used by Chilean authorities—State, political, economic and religious—in order to build an identity reference for the country and its inhabitants, in the image of what is proposed by their élites. In fact, the Chilean soil is crossed by several tectonic plates that cause catastrophes of great impact. The élites have endowed these events with a particular significance that, in addition to strengthening their power, has spread the idea that all Chileans are victims of Nature's indomitable effects. Based on the thorough research of press articles written between 1906 and 2010, this article shows how the media's treatment of earthquakes has been part of the liberal project sought by the political and economic élite.

The study of the external political situation of Venezuela and Cuba is made difficult by the extreme polarization of this field of inquiry. The work of most scholars emphasizes the break that Chavism would represent in bilateral diplomatic history. The repeated convictions of Rómulo Betancourt, Jaime Lusinchi and Rafael Caldera contrast with the declarations of friendship made by the Presidents of the Fifth Republic. Bilateral and regional agreements have been concluded between Cuba and Venezuela (Petrocasas, Misión Milagro, Alba…). They allowed the Cuban state to find financial resources and get out of the diplomatic isolation of the 1990s. Richard Gott, Gregory Wilpert or Claudio Katz describe the birth of a new type of bilateral relationship that would no longer be defined by national selfishness but by the political ideology of the actors. We will show how the alliance between the Chavista movement and Cuba was built and determined by the major geostrategic issues.