Nicaragua: A Return to Caudillismo

How Turkey’s democratic backsliding compromises the international dimension of democratization

“…This unwillingness on the part of Western democracies is induced by political and strategic incentives. In this context of shifting international balance between democratic and nondemocratic powers and economic, security, and political turmoil that challenge Western liberal democracies, illiberal incumbents in transitioning states with extensive linkages to the West are increasingly less likely to face external scrutiny to deter them from subverting democratic institutions and repressing political opponents when they are challenged by even modest political opposition, as is observed in the backsliding cases of Hungary and Nicaragua (Jacobsen, 2020; Thaler, 2017). Overall, these findings build on existing research that suggest that domestic factors such as the opposition strength or incumbent institutional capacity to repress or co‐opt political opponents are crucial to explaining democratic regime outcomes in transitioning states.…”

Nicaragua in 2019: The Surprising Resilience of Authoritarianism in the Aftermath of Regime Crisis

“…Since Ortega's return to power in 2007, Nicaragua's political regime has gradually drifted toward a neopatrimonial regime (Martí i Puig and Serra 2020). His rule came to resemble the patrimonial-caudillista regime more akin to the Somozas' rule, than to the original Sandinista revolutionary project of the 1980s (Thaler 2017;Martí i Puig 2019). Yet, the regime is formally more democratic and pluralist and, as many other neopatrimonial regimes, maintains some formal rational-legal procedures that are not merely a façade.…”

“…The alliance between FSLN, the local business class, and part of the Catholic Church, not to speak of the praise that the IMF had expressed about FSLN's economic policies, which Arturo Cruz labels "fiscally responsible populism" (Cruz 2018), was anything but a counterintuitive phenomenon. The earlier turn of the FSLN away from its history of a broad-based movement and its historical leftist policies towards those that were promoted by the economic elites is well-documented elsewhere (Walters 2016;Thaler 2017). Moreover, the fact that the self-proclaimed "socialist" government entered into conflict with the business and the Church is not "illogical" from the point of view of Nicaraguan contemporary history.…”

“…Further economic difficulties sprang from the collapsing economic model that had maintained macroeconomic stability prior to 2018. With an average GDP growth of 4.2% between 2007 and 2017 (World Bank 2020), economic governance was underpinned by the commodities boom and the special relationship with Venezuela (Thaler 2017), and institutionally enshrined in a corporatist arrangement after the government entered into alliance with private sector associations. This model was initiated as the interests of the entrepreneurial elite and the FSLN coincided both in making use of the abundance of Venezuelan-provided resources.…”

Nicaragua’s agroecological transition: Transformation or reconfiguration of the agri-food regime?

“…Ortega's economic policies have largely continued the neoliberal agro-export model but added broader social policies (Gonzálvez, Salmerón, and Zamora 2015; Martí I Puig and Baumeister 2017; Otero 2012). A cornerstone of Ortega's policies and activities is his politically motivated 2006 pact with the private sector (Thaler 2017). The administration's business friendliness can perhaps best be illustrated by the World Bank's 2017 recognition of Nicaragua as one of the top five global destinations to do business (Ripoll 2018), an explicit governmental goal since 2013 (Spalding 2017, 150).…”