Neoliberal reform, governance and corruption in Central America: Exploring the Nicaraguan case

This paper explores the limitations of the dominant neoliberal perspective on governance and institutional reform, with a particular focus upon anti-corruption initiatives. Over recent years, the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) have been promoting a specific discourse on corruption that separates it from its historicity and the specific political economy within which it develops. The paper sets out to analyse this dominant discourse, juxtaposing the language of transparency and accountability used by those promoting anti-corruption initiatives with the socio-political reality of a specific political culture/system – in this case that of post-revolutionary Nicaragua. Following a brief general discussion of the dynamics of governance reforms in Central America, the growth of international interest in combating corruption is discussed and a critique of the dominant approaches towards the issue outlined. This critique is then extended through an exploration of the evolution of anti-corruption initiatives in Nicaragua under the administration of President Arnoldo Alemán (1996–2001), which saw both an expansion in internationally sanctioned anti-corruption programmes and a catalogue of abuses that eventually culminated in Alemánʹs jailing under his successor.