| This study seeks to determine whether the contemporary socio-political upheavals in Central America may be usefully understood within the theoretical context of peasant-based social revolutions, and conversely, whether historical analysis of the Central American conflicts provides for contributing to theoretical debates concerning rural social movements and social change. The analysis proceeds by means of longitudinal and cross-national comparisons of peasant movements in the five countries of the region since colonial times, with primary emphasis on processes of mobilization during 1945-1979. Variables considered include the structure and dynamics of agrarian export economies, the motives, forms and objectives of peasant mobilization, and the nature and consequences of intervention by external allies and opponents.;Peasant involvement in contemporary revolutionary movements in Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua is seen to manifest a common mediation through community-based mobilization, a feature it shares, moreover, with earlier peasant revolts in the region. A historical transition from communal to formal associational types of organization, however, has increased the importance of external initiatives in generating and sustaining such movements. Countries which have not experienced revolutionary crises evince both high degrees of peasant mobilization without insurrection (Honduras) and low degrees of mobilization of any sort (Costa Rica). Contemporary differences in the degree and political direction of mobilization are better explained by national political factors than local agrarian social structures. |
