Class, State, and Revolution in Central America

Models of revolutionary behavior in Central America are developed that rely initially on the distribution of landholdings. The scarcity of arable land—as in El Salvador, with its high population density—is suggested to result in high inequality, acute class polarization, and class-based redistributive revolutionary movements. A lesser degree of land scarcity, as in Nicaragua, should lead to a diminished extent of inequality, less acute class polarization, and multiclass, nonredistributive revolutionary coalitions. The behaviors of revolutionary movements in both El Salvador and Nicaragua conform to expectations. In turn, three types of state-class relations are developed. These are instrumentalist states in which the state is used as an instrument of control by the dominant class (El Salvador); personalist states in which a caudillo-type leader rules in large measure, independent of the dominant class (Nicaragua); and autonomous institutional states (Mexico), which have developed infrastructures of party and/ or government.