Nicaragua: Progress amid regress?

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 153-167

  Anderson, Leslie E ^a   Dodd, Lawrence C ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 67651247367     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. Nicaragua's electoral law requires that the winner poll no less than 35 percent of the vote and at least 5 percentage points more than the closest contender. Ortega surpassed the minimum, and Eduardo Montealegre, the closest contender, polled 28.3 percent.
2. Our survey data come from June 2006 and March 2007 nationwide polls by the Nicaraguan research firm, CINASE, funded by a National Science Foundation Grant, and a late October 2008 CINASE poll, funded by the Manning J. Dauer Chair at the University of Florida.
3. Leslie E. Anderson and Lawrence C. Dodd, Learning Democracy: Citizen Engagement and Electoral Choice in Nicaragua, 1990-2001 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), ch. 2.
4. Leslie E. Anderson, "The Authoritarian Executive? Horizontal and Vertical Accountability in a New Democracy: A Nicaraguan Perspective," Latin American Politics and Society 48 (Summer 2006): 141-69.
5. Data from an October 2006 CINASE poll showed that in a runoff Ortega would have lost to Montealegre by 37.3 percent to 44.2 percent. He would have lost to Jarquín by 34.5 percent to 36.6 percent. He would have bested Rízo, 39.0 percent to 37.4 percent.
6. Carmen Gentile, "Is a Softer Side of Ortega Emerging?" Washington Times, 11 March 2008, A12.
7. On executive power and the contrast between Nicaragua and Argentina, see Leslie E. Anderson, Social Capital in Developing Democracies: Nicaragua and Argentina Compared, book manuscript in progress.
8. Tina Rosenberg, "The Many Stories of Carlos Fernando Chamorro," New York Times Magazine, 22 March 2009, 24, available at www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/magazine/22Nicaragua-t.html;
9. Blake Schmidt, "Ortega's Critics Warn of Growing 'Dictatorship,'" Washington Times, 17 February 2009, A11.
10. See "Nicaragua Is the Municipal Elections' Big Loser," Envio Digital, no. 328, November 2008, available at www.envio.org.ni/articulo/ 3907; and "How to Steal an Election," Economist, 13 November 2008, available at www.economist.com/world/americas/displaystory. cfm?story-id=12607338.
11. R. Andrew Nickson, Local Government in Latin America (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1995).
12. Jonathan Fox foresaw these developments in Latin America more generally in a prescient 1994 article on local-level politics. See his "Latin America's Emerging Local Politics," Journal of Democracy 5 (April 1994): 105-16.
13. Citizens in 158 municipalities went to the polls on 9 November 2008, while voters in six remote municipalities in the Atlantic region voted two weeks later.
14. See Marc Lacey, "Claims of a Rigged Vote Foment Bitter Protests in Nicaragua," New York Times, 20 November 2008; available at www.nytimes.com/2008/11/20/world/americas/20nicaragua.html?-r=1.
15. Carrie Manning finds the same pattern in El Salvador; see The Making of Democrats: Elections and Party Development in Postwar Bosnia, El Salvador, and Mozambique (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008).
16. James C. McKinley, Jr., "Nicaraguan Councils Stir Fear of Dictatorship," New York Times, 4 May 2008; available at www.nytimes.com/2008/05/04/world/americas/04nicaragua.html?n=Top/Reference/ Times%20Topics/People/O/Ortega%20Saavedra,%20Daniel.
17. See McKinley, "Nicaraguan Councils Stir Fear of Dictatorship"; Sergio Ramírez, "Nicaragua: Through the Abyss," available at www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-power/politics-protest/nicaragua-ortega;
18. and Frank J. Kendrick, "Nicaragua: The Second Coming of Daniel Ortega," Council on Hemispheric Affairs analysis, 4 February 2008, available at www.coha.org/2008/02/nicaragua-the-second-coming-of-daniel- ortega.
19. Aside from selecting "municipal" or "national" government, the other optional responses to the question included "both," "neither," "don't know," or "no response."
20. "The New Somoza: Political Tension in Nicaragua," Economist, 21 February 2009; "U.S. Holds Back Aid to Nicaragua for Three More Months," Associated Press, 13 March 2009.
21. Charles Tilly, Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
22. Leticia Lozano, "High Hopes in Central America: Recession-Driven Reality May Come as a Shock," Shipping Digest, 26 January 2009;
23. José Adán Silva, "Universal Primary Education Still Far Off," Inter Press Service, 1 April 2009, available at http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=46354.