Coffee and power

Description:

"Extraordinary wealth and variety of historiographical, interview, and statistical data undergird a critical application of Barrington Moore's theses on revolution and democracy to the cases of Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Three different class-and-state structures, largely generated by their coffee economies, are analyzed by dividing the upper classes into (purely) agrarian elites and their agroindustrial (processor/exporter) counterparts. A deepening split between them paved the recent path toward democratization in both El Salvador and Nicaragua. Costa Rica's earlier, smoother democratization is accounted for by the processor-grower social pact of the 1930s. Yet all three arrived arrived at more democratic, though flawed, neoliberal systems by the 1990s"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 57.

subjects: Politics and government,  Coffee industry,  History,  Elite (Social sciences),  Coffee trade,  Costa rica, history,  Costa rica, politics and government,  Nicaragua, politics and government,  El salvador, politics and government,  New York Times reviewed

Places: Nicaragua,  El Salvador,  Costa Rica

Times: 20th century,  1960-,  To 1960