The Rule Of Law In Central America

The book is a thorough study that focuses on the impact of the current crime wave on citizens' respect for the law in countries such as Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. The work opens with a brief review of the literature on the rule of law and legal socialization, followed by an historical overview of the democratization and justice reform in Central America from the 1990s to the present. Set as a comparative, micro-level study, the work then looks at an array of measures from citizens' toleration of government abuses of power to vigilante justice and the reporting of crime to police. Lastly, an empirical model is developed to predict citizens' attitudes, combining both these micro-level individual attributes with macro-level measures of institutional performance. A unique look at the process of democratization from a comparative perspective, Citizens' Support for the Rule of Law in Central America it will appeal to faculty, researchers, and students interested in Latin American politics, comparative politics, and democratic transition.

Reports of scandal and corruption have led to the downfall of numerous political leaders in Latin America in recent years. What conditions have developed that allow for the exposure of wrongdoing and the accountability of leaders? Enforcing the Rule of Law examines how elected officials in Latin American democracies have come under scrutiny from new forms of political control, and how these social accountability mechanisms have been successful in counteracting corruption and the limitations of established institutions. This volume reveals how legal claims, media interventions, civic organizations, citizen committees, electoral observation panels, and other watchdog groups have become effective tools for monitoring political authorities. Their actions have been instrumental in exposing government crime, bringing new issues to the public agenda, and influencing or even reversing policy decisions. Enforcing the Rule of Law presents compelling accounts of the emergence of civic action movements and their increasing political influence in Latin America, and sheds new light on the state of democracy in the region.

"Featuring the first in-depth comparison of the judicial politics of five under-studied Central American countries, The Achilles Heel of Democracy offers a novel typology of 'judicial regime types' based on the political independence and societal autonomy of the judiciary. This book highlights the under-theorized influences on the justice system - criminals, activists, and other societal actors, and the ways that they intersect with more overtly political influences. Grounded in interviews with judges, lawyers, and activists, it presents the 'high politics' of constitutional conflicts in the context of national political conflicts as well as the 'low politics' of crime control and the operations of trial-level courts. The book begins in the violent and often authoritarian 1980s in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and spans through the tumultuous 2015 'Guatemalan Spring'; the evolution of Costa Rica's robust liberal judicial regime is traced from the 1950s"--

Democracy cannot exist, proclaims Ungar (political science, City U. of New York-Brooklyn College) without the rule of law, which he defines as comprising an independent effective judiciary, state accountability to the law, and citizen accessibility to conflict-resolution mechanisms. He looks to Latin American countries to illustrate how stable democracies are undermined by executive power and judicial disarray that prevent the rule of law from taking hold. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

This study describes a Latin American legal system which punishes only the poor and a democratic state which fails to control its own agents' arbitrary practices. The contributors argue that judicial reform cannot be seperated from human rights and that justice must be made available to the poor.

This is an important and useful legal primer for Central America activists. It shatters the myths about the "neutrality" of U.S. law and situates legal questions where they really are: in the arena of political struggle. It shows how the law is used both by governing elites who share a consensus on keeping U.S. hegemony in Central America and by grassroots movements that push the limits of law and appeal to its underlying values to work for the self-determination of peoples in the region.

The volume takes a broad view of recent social, political, and economic developments in Latin America. It contains six essays, focused on salient and cross-cutting themes, that try to construct a thread or narrative about the highly diverse region, highlighting its main idiosyncrasies and analyzing where it might be headed in coming years. While the essays recognize considerable advances, they also point out setbacks and missed opportunities that have stood in the way of sustained progress. Strengthening state capacity emerges as a significant challenge.

The authors examine the way in which international organizations rationalize and prioritize their reform proposals and agenda in Latin America; how reform agendas are implemented and followed up (or not); how international donor organizations relate to national governments and civil society, and to