Abstract
The Sandinista Revolution continues to loom large in contemporary Nicaraguan politics. The events leading up to and following the fall of the Somoza regime in 1979 provided scholars of revolutions with an intriguing case study they could analyze as it unfolded in real time. During the 1980s, Nicaragua was omnipresent in the news cycle with stories of a revolution fighting for its survival against a crippling economic embargo and a clandestinely funded war to topple a revolutionary experiment. Against these international pressures, the Sandinistas lost power in the 1990 elections and peacefully transferred power. The Sandinistas also lost the following two presidential elections before returning to power in 2007. Even in a string of electoral defeats, the Sandinistas remained a dominant political force. The durability and adaptability of Sandinismo raises two related questions. First, what motivated people to join or support the Sandinistas during the revolution? Second, what does it mean to be a Sandinista? This later question is important in explaining the motivations and meanings behind the revolution and how Sandinismo continues to evolve and endure in Nicaraguan politics.
In providing answers to these questions, Jean-Pierre Reed makes a number of important theoretical interventions that not only explain the Nicaraguan revolutionary experience but provides scholars of revolution with an important theoretical architecture that can be applied and refined to other empirical settings. Reed begins by privileging what he terms the ‘subjective dimensions of revolutionary agency’ (p. 1.) in order to explore how Sandinistas and their supporters came to believe that it was possible to change their circumstances and work toward building a better and more just Nicaraguan society. This entails demarcating the Sandinista Revolution into two distinct phases: the insurrection (the mass mobilization to oust Somoza) followed by a period of revolutionary consolidation whereby the Sandinistas sought to transform Nicaragua. Such a demarcation acknowledges that the revolution was about more than overthrowing a dictator. People also participated in the hopes that they could take part in creating a new post-Somoza Nicaragua. Toward this end, Reed borrows from Anthony Giddens who distinguished the following two distinct but related processes: (1) emancipatory politics, that is, ‘a type of politics concerned with liberating individuals from institutional “constraints which adversely impact”’ people’s lives and (2) what Giddens calls life politics which ‘is a politics of identity through which individuals reflexively and in practice determine who they want to become and what kind of society they wish to create for themselves’ (pp. 5–9).
In both processes, Reed focuses on certain defining events and the varied meanings participants attached to those events. The role of ideology is not completely jettisoned, but Reed argues that an over-emphasis on ideology greatly diminishes, or even worse completely occludes, the breadth and diversity of lived experiences that inform collective action and subsequent political engagement. This is an important conceptual distinction to make because diverse sectors of Nicaraguan society were united in their desire to overthrow Somoza. In other words, the driving force behind the revolution was not an elite cadre of individuals conversant in Marxist theory. This cadre of individuals certainly existed but it was not a monolithic entity with Svengali-like control over the Nicaraguan populous. Rather, the ultimate success of the revolution lies in how various segments of the country coalesced to overthrow Somoza in spite of their divergent goals and hopes for the future. Explaining how these varied interests overlapped and evolved over time in Nicaragua is an important contribution of this book.
In order to untangle and analyze the disparate motivations underlying revolutionary agency, Reed makes two important theoretical arguments. The first is that revolutionary participation can be understood by examining what he calls ‘insurgent/revolutionary events’. Social scientists have expounded upon the theoretical usefulness of events for collective action. Events, or more importantly how people experience events, serve as a useful lens that scholars can use to examine the motivations for revolutionary participation. As Reed notes, ‘events occasion the re-interpretation of social reality, and this can serve as the basis for social action against existing institutional arrangements, given the shift in meaning the re-interpretation of sociopolitical reality potentially engenders’ (p. 19). Insurgent or revolutionary events, then, are those events that jar people into collective action and allow people to assess and frame their lived experiences. This reframing thus informs the range of options available for purposeful collective action.
Events also serve as a rallying point that can unify people with different lived experiences to combat a common threat. In the Nicaraguan context, Reed identifies the following events that precipitated the overthrow of Somoza: the fraudulent 1967 elections, the earthquake that decimated Managua in 1972, the assassination of Pedro Joaquín Chamorro (a prominent newspaper editor and vocal critic of Somoza), and a series of tactical successes by the Sandinistas such as the taking of hostages at a Christmas party for the American ambassador and the taking of the National Palace in 1978. Scholars who use events as a theoretical category are rightly hesitant to lay out a fixed set of criteria to determine which events rise to the level of insurgent or revolutionary events. Precipitating events in one context can be very different in another based on unique historical experiences and lived realties. As some events heighten the possibilities for collective action, Reed also makes a strong case for the theoretical value of emotions. Reed maintains that [t]he presence of anger, fear, hope, love, outrage, and pride, for example, are not uncommon to insurgent involvement. They facilitate the building of solidarity, contribute to the resolve of insurgent actors – sometimes in the absence of favorable circumstances – and stand for key constituents of radical identity. (p. 22)
Events and emotions can be treated as separate theoretical categories, but Reed shows that they are interrelated. Both allow actors to make sense of their circumstances. Insurgent or revolutionary events become imbued with emotions. As such, emotions serve to ‘evaluate and frame’ an actors’ ‘sense of reality, organize their experience, and embody (act upon) the various phases of revolution they may find themselves in’ (p. 25). It is a mistake to discount emotions as ephemeral or irrational. Rather, emotions are important windows into the inner motivations for collective action. Emotions are in fact quite rational insofar as they constitute discernable ways people respond to events and circumstances.
To plumb the depths of emotions and how actors respond to events, Reed makes extensive use of three published volumes of oral histories. These volumes contain open-ended interviews with 7000 Nicaraguans conducted shortly after the revolution and provide scholars with invaluable insights into the motivations of participants. In addition to these oral histories, Reed conducted his own interviews with people from various class, sex, and education backgrounds. These interviews also gauged respondents experience across a wider range of revolutionary experience. In other words, Reed’s own interviews benefit from the luxury of hindsight and allowed his respondents to assess their beliefs from a broader perspective. Through his own interviews, Reed concludes that Nicaraguans participated in the revolution based on ‘emotions, religion, and personal interpretations of Sandinismo that were not ideological in nature’ (p. 27).
These last two points are specific to the Nicaraguan revolutionary experience. Unlike most 20th-century revolutions (with the notable exception perhaps of Iran), religion played a very prominent role in the Nicaraguan revolution. In Nicaragua, Liberation Theology inspired Christian Base Communities and Cursillos de Cristiandad that served as focal points for Nicaraguans to meet and discuss the plight of the poor. Reed does a marvelous job of teasing out the history of Liberation Theology and how it influenced the Nicaraguan revolution. Students of Nicaragua will also benefit from Reed’s answer to what it means to be a Sandinista. Based on his interviews, Reed concludes that Sandinismo is much more than an ideological Marxist offshoot or a political project. Sandinismo is first and foremost a way of life for its adherents which requires a fundamental change in attitude and approach. Sandinismo represents, values and principals consistent with a commitment to transform the meaning of one’s life and how one related to others: living and embodying a new mentality predicated on brotherhood, giving of oneself to others, and committing one’s life to the poor and the nation. (p. 196)
This resulted in caring more about the nation and for others. Sandinismo has endured in part because the 1990s and the turn toward neoliberalism ushered in a more individualistic era that shunned the values of self-sacrifice and social justice.
Chronologically, the book ends with the 1996 elections which was the second electoral defeat of the Sandinistas in a row. Sandinismo suffered another electoral defeat in 2001 before returning to power in 2007. Students of Nicaragua should extend Reed’s analysis further to see how Sandinismo may have changed after returning its return to power, especially following of the April 2018 riots. Students of revolutions will also benefit from a close reading of Reed’s work, especially his theoretical use of insurgent or revolutionary events and emotions. Sandinista Narratives is important reading for both students of Nicaragua and revolutions in general.