The Devil is in the Details of the Nicaraguan Social Process: Modernization with Oligarquical Tendencies

Abstract

This article critically reviews the Gilles Bataillon suggestive hypothesis for the study of the social process and the Sandinista phenomenon in Nicaragua. Although we cannot speak of dictatorship or totalitarianism, it is possible to find a religious imaginary and some medieval practices often posing as “originality” revolutionary. The Nicaraguan revolution from this point of view is different from the Cuban Revolution, mainly because the Central American country’s longstanding oligarchy and the fact that the Catholic Church never ceased to play an important role. Nicaragua has remained in the past with a populist government in which several “social ages” coexist and a true modern synthesis has not yet been achieved.