JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs. ntil relatively recently, the small, poor countries of Central America were typically regarded as particularly poor candidates for democratization, despite a good measure of early and sustained success in Costa Rica (Ebel 1972(Ebel ,1984Rosenberg 1987). Nevertheless, over the years 1984-1996, "transitions to democracy" have been realized throughout the region. Given the extremely negative economic conditions of the 1980s and 1990s and the extent and historical intractability of political violence in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, these transitions via peace processes and "elections of the century" are remarkable achievements.1 Still, the fullness and consolidation of democracy remain very much up in the air, as is widely the case among countries that have experienced some degree of democratic transition during the last two decades (the so-called "third wave"). This situation raises the prospect of a historical era in which the poorer provinces of the globe are populated largely by "hybrid regimes" that are, at best, highly incomplete democracies.2Despite the distinctiveness of the Nicaraguan regime of the 1980s, current discussions of the status of Central American democratization often highlight marked parallels among political developments in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. Historically authoritarian agrarian societies, wracked by upheaval and civil war during the 1970s and 1980s, now have passed through peace processes, pactmaking, and "foundational elections," adding up to "transitions to democracy." Many discussions also note, however, that these countries face ongoing problems of democratic completion and consolidation. Steady progress toward full and stable democracy is absent. Instead of the transition from authoritarianism to procedurally correct elections leading smoothly into a "second transition" toward full political democracy, these systems exhibit erratic ups and downs and continuing democratic deficits (see Mainwaring 1992; O'Donnell 1992).3 The current problematic state of Central American democratization is often attributed to weakness of the political center. Despite peace processes and the end of the Cold War, in Nicaragua and El Salvador in particular, party systems, electoral politics, and political cultures continue to be characterized by left-right polarization, weakness and fragmentation 63 This content downloaded from 169.229.32.137 on Thu, 8 May 2014 22:35:57 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions JOURNAL OF INTERAMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS ...
