LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES 10.1177/0094582X03254306BOOKREVIEW REVIEWS Action and Aftermath The State, Clientelism, and the International System in Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution by Julie Sangster Misagh Parsa States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of Iran, Nicaragua, and the Philippines. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 2000. 326 pp. Lynn Horton Peasants in Arms: War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, 1979–1994. Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1998. 372 pp. Cynthia Chavez Metoyer Women and the State in Post-Sandinista Nicaragua. Boul- der: Lynne Rienner, 2000. 149 pp. Over the past two decades, Nicaragua’s Sandinista Revolution—its causes, inner dynamics, and consequences—has been the target of much scholarly work. What fac- tors led to the revolution and its success? What factors led to the buildup of the contra movement in the 1980s? What are the implications of the 1990 Sandinista electoral defeat and the implementation of neoliberal reforms? Three recent books focusing on different stages of the Nicaraguan revolution and its aftermath attempt to answer these questions. In States, Ideologies, and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of Iran, Nicaragua, and the Philippines, Misagh Parsa attempts to explain why three similar revolutionary movements had such different outcomes. Looking at the subse- quent period in Nicaraguan history, in Peasants in Arms: War and Peace in the Moun- tains of Nicaragua, 1979–1994 Lynn Horton shows us why some Quilali villagers supported the Sandinistas while others took up arms with the contras. Finally, in Women and the State in Post-Sandinista Nicaragua Cynthia Chavez Metoyer focuses on the period following the war and the revolution and examines the structural adjust- ments imposed by the state and the impact of these policies on the position of women in Nicaraguan society. While these writers are analyzing three very different periods in Nicaragua’s history and employing different methods, their theoretical approaches are similar in their emphasis on the potential autonomy of the state and its importance as a key actor in determining the outcomes of these situations. They are also similar in that they deemphasize class analysis and treat the international system and the United States as contextual but not active variables. Julie Sangster is a writer and editor living in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She has an M.A. in political science from the University of New Mexico and has traveled extensively in the Caribbean and Central America as a journalist and researcher. LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 131, Vol. 30 No. 4, July 2003 120-125 © 2003 Latin American Perspectives 120 BOOK REVIEWS 121 Parsa’s formidable comparative work combines a structural approach with resource-mobilization and political-process perspectives to determine why the Iran and Nicaragua cases resulted in social revolution while the Philippines case was lim- ited to a political revolution. Along with Charles Tilly (1978) and Eric Selbin (1993), he emphasizes that, although structural factors may set the stage for revolution, they do not determine the outcome. To explain why similar structural situations produce different results, Parsa looks at factors relating to state capacity, collective action, and resource mobilization (specifically: opportunities, organization, threats, vulnerabili- ties, and coalition formation). He identifies the similar structural factors and experi- ences of the three cases: they all pursued a capitalist development strategy, they con- trolled the political sphere through authoritarian and repressive means, the states had not been weakened by external war, and all three had the support of the United States. He concludes that the key similarity between these three cases is the extreme central- ized and exclusive nature of state power. He explains that as the shah in Iran, the Somozas in Nicaragua, and Marcos in the Philippines became increasingly central- ized and exclusive and intervened in the economic sphere, they set the stage for their own demise. With very limited social support bases, these rulers turned to the United States for political, economic, and military backing. Parsa notes that, while this enabled them to suppress the opposition, state repression weakened the moderate opposition and “provided an opportunity for radical and militant challengers to gain the leadership of the opposition” (2000: 281). While the centralization of state power represents the key similarity among these cases and the reason all three erupted in revolution, Parsa explains that the different outcomes and natures of the revolutions can be explained through their key differ- ence: the underlying political system. Until 1972, when President Marcos imposed martial law, the Philippines, unlike Nicaragua and Iran, had a political system marked by formal democratic institutions. Also in contrast to Nicaragua and Iran, the political mobilization that did occur in the Philippines in opposition to the state failed to form a broad coalition among various social groups and classes. Marcos was able to deepen the divisions in the opposition movement by encouraging moderates to participate in the 1984 elections for the National Assembly—eventually ending in a schism in the armed forces and the rise to power of an elite-led opposition. Parsa determines, there- fore, that these key differences led to a political revolution in the Philippines in con- trast to the social revolutions experienced by Nicaragua and Iran. State intervention in economic development is another key to Parsa’s argument because, as he says, “in times of economic crisis or decline, governments, rather than markets, were held responsible for mismanagement and inappropriate policies” (2000: 283). Indeed, he sees state intervention as the key determinant of the various outcomes of the three cases. He emphasizes, however, that structural factors do not complete the picture. He identifies coalition formation, opportunity for collective action, and the presence of class conflict as key determinants of whether a revolution will occur. Turning Marx’s theory of class conflict on its head, Parsa sees class con- flict as a deterrent to revolutionary success. It is class coalitions that aid revolutionary movements, and the high levels of state intervention by Somoza and the shah “reduced the intensity of class conflicts and contributed to the formation of class 122 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES coalitions,” whereas in the Philippines lower levels of intervention “contributed to the intensification of class conflict and thus reduced the likelihood of class coalitions” (283). Perhaps one of the most valuable arguments put forth in this book is that analyses of revolution that focus on ideology often produce circular arguments. “Analyses that attribute sweeping powers to ideology tend to mystify it and isolate it from its social context and origin” (2000: 288). He emphasizes that ideology was a major catalyst for change only when the right structural variables allowed it to flourish and influence society and only when moderates and capitalists had few alternatives. While Parsa’s analysis is compelling and methodical, he seems to play down a few key factors, especially in relation to the role of the United States. He acknowledges that the United States was basically responsible for the Somozas’and the shah’s com- ing to and maintaining power, but he sees this support as ultimately a destabilizing force: “Although in the short run the Somozas succeeded in checking the opposition, in the long run the effect of exclusive rule was to reduce social support for the rulers and render them vulnerable to attack and challenge” (2000: 44–45). It seems mislead- ing to allude to four decades of exclusive rule with the term “in the short run.” The backing of the United States was precisely what enabled the regime to stay in power for so long, and this points to a more important oversight in Parsa’s argument. While he repeatedly recognizes the importance of the international arena (especially the United States) in his historical overviews, he assigns it a very passive role in his theo- retical analysis: “Exclusive rule narrows the social base of support for the state. These conditions in turn force the state to rely on external support and coercive apparatus” (280). But isn’t “external support” part of the explanation for the existence of exclu- sive rule in the first place and, especially in the Nicaraguan case, its persistence? In all three cases, international factors played a very active role. Lynn Horton, in Peasants in Arms, also identifies structural elements as “setting the stage” for her analysis of the period following the 1979 uprising in Nicaragua. She notes that state policies, U.S. policies, and socioeconomic factors provided the con- text for the initial formation of the contras but then shifts to clientelism and cross-class alliances as causal factors for their successful recruitment of peasants in Quilali. In contrast to Parsa, Horton is not attempting to develop a grand theory of revolution or counterrevolution but looking at a very specific case to understand the structural and individual factors that explain why peasants join armed movements. Horton’s bottom-up approach utilizes extensive interviews with Quilali residents to understand why some supported the contras, others stayed loyal to the Sandinistas, and virtually nobody avoided taking sides. She notes that while the