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No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Roger dos Anjos de Sá - 2014.pdf: 2409543 bytes, checksum: 0ca0c54b9202cdac71aefbd8a49fd939 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-09-25 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Goiás - FAPEG / In July 1979, the Sandinista Revolution triumphed in Nicaragua, thus constituting a political framework of great importance for the history of the last quarter of the twentieth century. In front of the revolutionary process, was the FSLN (Sandinista National Liberation Front), an organization founded in the early 1960s inspired by Augusto César Sandino, a nationalist who fought against the domination exerted by the United States of America in that country in the late 1920s and in the beginning of next decade. Sandino was assassinated at the behest of the then chief of the National Guard, Anastasio Somoza García, in 1934. In 1937, Somoza took over the government of Nicaragua inaugurating the longest of all dictatorships of America, which lasted until 1979. Associated various political ideologies derived from various social segments the FSLN led a popular uprising that toppled the dictatorship and began a period of intense disputes and social, economic and political transformations in Nicaragua. The tactic of economic transformation was conducted by the mixed economy and the political model was guided by plurality. Meanwhile the Sandinista Front sought to consolidate its hegemony through the cooptation of popular and mass organizations and also through the establishment of an Army. A few years after the revolutionary triumph came one armed counterrevolution, what made the consigning a war that consumed in huge sums of money following years and a concentration in military defense of the Revolution. The counterrevolutionary forces were formed under the auspices of the American government of Ronald Reagan. In this sense, the period between 1979 and 1990, Nicaragua became an important center of American interference, which combined the groups opposing the Sandinista Front, mainly the bourgeoisie and the upper hierarchy of the Catholic Church constituted together, armed groups, the cons, who fought with the government a civil war. The Sandinista Revolution lasted until 1990, when the FSLN was defeated electorally by a counterrevolutionary coalition called UNO (National Union Opposition) that was financed by the United States. / Em julho de 1979, a Revolução Sandinista triunfou na Nicarágua, constituindo assim um marco político de grande relevância para a história do último quartel do século XX. Na dianteira do processo revolucionário, estava a FSLN (Frente Sandinista de Libertação Nacional), organização fundada no início da década de 1960 inspirada em Augusto César Sandino, um nacionalista que lutou contra a dominação exercida pelos Estados Unidos da América naquele país no final dos anos 1920 e no início da década seguinte. Sandino foi assassinado a mando do então chefe da Guarda Nacional, Anastásio Somoza García, em 1934. Em 1937, Somoza assumiu o governo da Nicarágua, inaugurando a mais longa de todas as ditaduras da América, que durou até 1979. Associados a diversas ideologias políticas oriundas de variados segmentos sociais, a FSLN liderou uma insurreição popular que derrubou a ditadura e iniciou um período de intensas disputas e transformações sociais, econômicas e políticas na Nicarágua. A tática de transformação econômica foi conduzida pela economia mista e o modelo político foi pautado pela pluralidade. Entrementes a Frente Sandinista buscou consolidar sua hegemonia mediante a cooptação de organizações populares e de massa e também através da constituição de um Exército. Poucos anos após o triunfo revolucionário, surgiu uma contrarrevolução armada, o que fez com que se consignasse uma situação de guerra que consumiu nos anos seguintes enormes somas monetárias e uma concentração na defesa militar da Revolução. As forças contrarrevolucionárias foram formadas sob a tutela do governo norte-americano de Ronald Reagan. Neste sentido, no período entre 1979 e 1990, a Nicarágua tornou-se um importante polo da ingerência norte-americana, que aliada a grupos opostos a Frente Sandinista, principalmente à burguesia e à alta hierarquia da Igreja Católica, constituíram juntos grupos armados, os contras, que travaram com o governo uma guerra civil. A Revolução Sandinista durou até 1990, quando a FSLN foi derrotada eleitoralmente por uma coalização contrarrevolucionária denominada UNO (União Nacional Opositora), financiada pelos Estados Unidos.

This thesis eschews an econometric approach to the analysis of microfinance initiatives in favour of a wider, political economy approach. It paints a picture of the international financial and socio-economic environment in which microfinance as a practice has developed since the mid-1970s, and the introduction outlines the political agendas that fuel the theoretical debate over development, and the manner in which the self-proclaimedly objective scientific rationale that underlines the dominant neoliberal hegemony is in reality no such thing. The introduction is followed by a methodological explanation of the necessity to examine microfinance in such a context, and then deals with the combination of approaches included in the thesis, sources, and data-collection methods of the fieldwork in Nicaragua. The next three chapters comprise the body of theoretical and literary evidence in support of this methodology, from the international down to the sectoral level within Nicaragua. Having located the Nicaraguan microfinance sector within a theoretical, international and national context, the subsequent chapter moves to examine the local context. The fieldwork in Nicaragua culminates in a combined map- and questionnaire-based exercise set in Masaya, a city some 27 kilometres roughly south of Managua, the capital. The chapter examines the structure and functions of two local microfinance organisations, FAMA and ADIM, and conducts a close examination of the population amongst which these microfinance organisations operate. The survey of the socioeconomy of households within the Masaya area concludes by casting doubts on, traditional methods of microfinance impact assessment, and suggests a different approach to studying microfinance. The thesis concludes by suggesting that the current vogue for envisaging microfinance initiatives as purely financial operations to be analysed as an accounting phenomenon is not only mistaken, but has potentially damaging consequences. The thesis argues that microfinance must be seen within local, national and international political contexts, and that doing so will help avoid costly errors. The thesis also suggests that the demand for new client-orientated initiatives will be assisted by taking the political economic reality into account, and by using methods such as those suggested by this thesis.

Early adolescent pregnancy implies increased social and medical risks. There is lack of understanding of the mechanisms behind early sexual debut and pregnancy. This contributes to the difficulties to meet the educational and health care needs of adolescents. In Nicaragua, few reproductive health interventions target adolescents and even fewer studies focus on sexual and reproductive health in this age group. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to analyze the background of adolescent pregnancy in Nicaragua, for future interventions. Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews were carried out with young and adult women and men from different social backgrounds in the city of León. Results were used in the planning of a cross-sectional household study carried out in 1993, covering a population of 43,765 in 50 randomly selected clusters in rural and urban León. Reproductive histories were obtained from all women aged 15 to 49 years (n= 10,867), corresponding to 176281 person years of reproductive life. Random sub-samples of men (n=388) and women (n=413) were interviewed in privacy about their age at sexual debut, contraceptive use and reproductive history. The background to early adolescent pregnancy was further analyzed in a matched case-referent study of girls who got their first pregnancy before 17 years of age (146 cases, 242 randomly selected age-matched referents). Economic deprivation and disturbed family relations with an unsatisfied craving for parental affection influence adolescent sexual behavior. Girls' romanticism, belief in virginity until marriage and the contrasting male machismo culture contribute to a lack of empowerment of adolescents. At 15 years of age, 25% of boys and girls had had their sexual debut, and at 18 years this was the case for 85% of boys and 53% of girls. Among girls, the latency period from sexual debut to the end of first pregnancy was only 22 months, indicating very limited access to contraceptive counseling and services. At 17 years of age, one fourth had become pregnant. Contraceptive use was 54% among sexually active adolescents, aged 15-19 years, pills being the most common method. Among adults, female sterilization was the most common method, followed by Intra Uterine Device (IUD) and pilL Condom use was low as well as the use of traditional methods. Low educational attainment was a strong determinant for lack of contraception. Age at sexual debut and age at first pregnancy had been increasing, and fertility rate had declined in Nicaragua from the 1970s to the 1990s. The increase in women’s education was found to be the strongest explanatory factor behind this transition in fertility. Girls who had successfully completed at least 5 years of schooling had lower risk for early pregnancy. This protective effect of education was found for groups with high as well as low socioeconomic status. The background of adolescent pregnancy consists of a complex interaction of socio­economic, familial and cultural factors. Lack of political will to challenge current values, religious influence in sexual and educational issues, romanticism and lack of empowerment, especially among adolescent women, are also influencing elements. Contraceptive use is still low among sexually active teenagers in Nicaragua, and pregnancy follows soon after first intercourse. There is a strong need for family life education at schools and health services geared to adolescents. Non-use of contraception is associated with poverty and lack of education. The association between education and fertility decline, and the protective effect of education in preventing early pregnancies, even among poor families, indicates that education is a powerful tool in breaking the vicious cycles of poverty and early pregnancy. / digitalisering@umu

The aim of this diploma thesis is to analyse position of selected Central American countries in the world economy. Selected countries are Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The thesis is divided into five main chapters. The first chapter provides general information about Central America. The second, third a fourth chapter characterize general and economic information, international trade, foreign direct investments and future possibilities and perspectives of selected countries. In the last part I describe socioeconomic comparison of selected countries.

The Press in Transition adopts a comparative approach to transitional print institutions worldwide. It is based on some 150 interviews and archival research on four continents, over a decade of unprecedented global transformation and upheaval. The dissertation seeks to fill a serious gap in the existing literature on democratization and political transition. Theoretical chapters advance a comparative model of press functioning (Chapter 1) and a more tentative model of transitional media, with a strong focus on the mainstream press (Chapter 6). The bulk of the work consists of four case-studies, each drawn from a different geographical region (indeed, continent) and a markedly different "type" of liberalization or transition process. The case of Nicaragua (Chapter 2) stands out somewhat. It concentrates almost exclusively on a single newspaper, Barricada, the former official organ of the Sandinista Front. The newspaper's transformations in the 1990s are, however, set against the backdrop of Barricades history since 1979, intra-Sandinista politics during and after the revolutionary era, and the more general interplay of media and politics in Nicaragua. The remaining three case-studies (South Africa, Jordan, and Russia: Chaps. 3-5) combine system-level analysis with micro-level portraits of transitional institutions and individuals. The core of the theoretical analysis lies in a delineation of "mobilizing" and "professional" imperatives. The former I attach mainly to sponsors and managers of media institutions; the latter mainly - not exclusively or universally — to the editorial side of the operation. The interplay of these variables I see as integral to an understanding of events at the case-study newspapers. The opening theoretical chapter situates mobilizing and professional imperatives as both dependent and independent variables. I argue that they reflect and respond to variables like underdevelopment, authoritarianism, and pre-existing media culture. But they also serve as founts of important and interesting initiatives, whether professional, political, or commercial. Significantly, too, they regularly conflict. The dissertation struggles to avoid heroicizing, but it also tries to show that tensions and upheavals — both small-scale and radically transformative - tend to derive from the clash of mobilizing and professional priorities. / Arts, Faculty of / Political Science, Department of / Graduate

In 2007, revolutionary commander Daniel Ortega returned to power in Nicaragua, claiming to enact the “second phase” of the Sandinista Popular Revolution (1979-1990). However, this was not a return to revolution as Nicaraguans had come to know it. The Ortega regime established timely alliances with former adversaries, including the leadership of the Catholic Church as well as the nation’s business elites. Moreover, Sandinismo was recast from the figures of revolutionary militancy and the disciplined party-state to a personalistic vision of the loving patriarch, disseminating a kitsch-ified, religiously inflected doctrine of ‘love’ to the neoliberalized masses. Though Ortega was elected without a majoritarian mandate, his regime quickly grew in popularity while also consolidating an authoritarian political project that dismantled incipient liberal-democratic institutions and constitutional guarantees in the name of ‘the people.’ Based on 24 months of participant-observation research between 2014 and 2018 in the peripheries of a city located in the urban pacific of Nicaragua, a traditional Sandinista stronghold, this dissertation investigates the Ortega regime’s capacity to hail Nicaraguans into relation with Sandinismo and the FSLN party in the post-revolutionary moment. I argue that the material exchanges that are most often taken to explain the mobilizing capacities of authoritarian populism must be analyzed in conjunction with the economy of affects that circulate in and through exchanges, which issue powerful forms of identification that help sustain people’s attachments to the FSLN even when redistributive politics fades away. For historical militants and other Sandinistas that lived through the 1980’s, attachments to the FSLN are structured by way of a ‘revolutionary a structure of feelings’ that continues to be reproduced in the contemporary moment. For my interlocutors, the gift of being a Sandinista, narrated as a political birth, brought with it an unpayable debt that produces obligations to Sandinismo. It is this very structure of feeling that enables militants to cope with multiple injuries to which the party routinely subjects them, which I argue come to be experienced as sacrifices on Sandinismo’s behalf. Moreover I suggest that being wounded by the FSLN itself might afford pleasure, and that it might be the site of production of a victimized identity, one dependent on attachment to that which injures. Finally, I argue that for a younger generation, Sandinismo has also produced strong forms of identification in the absence of historically structured attachments. This time, attachments are predicated not on the notion of a revolutionary inheritance, but on Sandinismo as a patriarchal family which rewards its members with a sense of mediatized recognition, righteousness, and power in exchange not for sacrifices, but for following the injunction to ‘produce prosperity’ as good neoliberal subjects aspiring to gain access to a range of consumer pleasures. It is these affective excesses that sharpen the boundaries of the political community and invest it with a vibrance it could not otherwise achieve, inviting and enabling those that are part of it to the often violent, permanent defense of Sandinismo.

No description available.

This thesis makes two arguments. First, that the analytical lens of terrorism is useful to understanding the modern state because it pits the state against its antithesis. Additionally, the discursive contest between the state and terrorists is best understood within a gendered framework. Second, the Sandinista Revolution did not revolutionize the discourse the Nicaraguan state used to legitimate itself, thus limiting the movement’s revolutionary nature.

No description available.

One challenge facing spatial scientists trying to support public health outreach and intervention in challenging environments is the lack of fine scale spatial data. These data are required to gain a better understanding of both physical and social systems; why disease occurs where it does, and how to disrupt it. While data options exist, including high resolution aerial imagery, remotely sensed data, and even online mapping products like Google Street View, these all come with limitations. One option that has previously been utilized to assess cholera risk is spatial video. Here it is used to map potential mosquito breeding sites in an endemic Dengue and Chikungunya, and emerging Zika impacted community. We show how this method can provide mapping support in the hands of non-specialist public health workers who, working in collaboration with out-of-area geographic information systems (GIS) teams, can identify where to target limited intervention resources. We use a case study of an impoverished informal style Nicaraguan community suffering from a high disease burden to show spatial variation in potential mosquito breeding habitats. A field team collected street-by-street spatial video data to produce fine scale risk maps of standing water and trash locations, which, when interpreted with the associated spatial video imagery, were used to suggest where intervention strategies should be targeted. We also discuss how these same data layers can be used to address other health concerns traditionally found in informal settlements.