Class, State, and Popular Organizations in Mozambique and Nicaragua

Bibliographic Data

ID4500089
AuthorsAugustus Bonner Cochran (0000-0003-3302-4992), Catherine V Scott
Year1992
Volume19
Issue2
Pages105-124
Publication date1992-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLatin American Perspectives (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0094-582X • E-ISSN: 1552-678X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0094582x9201900206
OpenAlexW2090611806
LanguageEN
References cited26

Much of the literature on revolutions in the periphery is concerned with either the domestic obstacles to the realization of socialism or the destabilization tactics employed by external actors against the new revolutionary governments. For example, Munslow (1986: 11-23) and Fagen, Deere, and Coraggio (1986: 15-20) point to a weak economy, a lack of political organization and consciousness among the peasantry and working class, and domestic opposition as major factors affecting the transition to socialism. There is a vast literature on the wars carried out by the United States against the Sandinistas and South Africa's war against the frontline states (see, e.g., Vanderlaan, 1986; Callaghy, 1983). Thus there has been growing consensus that domestic constraints are diffilcult although not impossible to overcome and that external destabilization is probably inevitable, even in Third World countries with clearly reformist political and economic agendas (e.g., Jamaica in the 1970s [Lewis, 1983]). The scarcity of foreign exchange and the exigencies of war place great pressure on the revolutionary leadership to emphasize centralization in economic planning and reduce popular involvement in political decision making. At the same time, nearly every Third World revolutionary movement has succeeded in overthrowing the old regime because of prior mobilization of the peasants and workers. Although, as Munslow (1986: 10-11) points out, protracted people's war ... is a rapidly depletable resource, whose effects can be negated over the medium term, it is both the strategy responsible for bringing the new government to power and a tradition to which it is accountable

Communism · Development economics · Economics · Economy · Market economy · Opposition (politics) · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Scarcity · Socialism · Spanish Civil War · State (computer science) · Law · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion

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