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This article examines the formation of the Nicaraguan National Guard before and during the period of the Sandino rebellion, U.S. military intervention, and its aftermath (1925-1936). Focusing on the radically abrupt, upward displacement of coercive capacities in these eleven years of war, we emphasize the agency of Nicaraguans in shaping the kind of institution the Guard became. We argue that the process of war against a homegrown nationalist insurgency most profoundly shaped Guard identity and that the Somocista state represented a masked and modernized form of caudillismo, as a political system within which political authority and power resided in personal and patronage relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Carmen Sobalvarro (Nicaragua, 1908-194D, widely known during the 1930s as General Augusto Sandino's "platonic" girlfriend, was the only female poet officially admitted into the Nicaraguan vanguard movement. Despite her significance to Nicaraguan politics and letters, until recently she has been virtually forgotten. In crafting her public persona, Sobalvarro combined traditional and modern stereotypes of womanhood, thus providing Central Americans with a viable model of women in literature and politics. Through her poetry and image, she also shored up the romantic notion of Sandino as a valiant general deserving of international respect and adoration, especially among female followers. In these ways, the poet serves as a significant case study of the cultural anxieties surrounding changing gender roles upon the arrival of the "modern" woman and a growing women's movement in Nicaragua. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes the political and economic practices that characterized the dollar diplomacy in Nicaragua. It illustrates how the novel U.S. economic project, intended to modernize the Latin American States, turned out to be a feudal, anti-modern project, from the point of view of Nicaraguan upper classes. Some of the unforeseen effects of this imperialist policy let the author show that the analysis of economic and social conditions carried out by a privileged section of society may conceal or misrepresented the economic and social conditions of other groups. Doing this the privileged sectors of society present their own experience as a generalized experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the organized political violence in north-central Nicaragua from 1926 to 1934 highlighting the Conservative gang leader Anastacio Hernandez and on Sandino's rebels. Outline of the contexts of the weak state and local-regional caudillismo; Ritualized violence caused by Hernandez and others in the service of their patrons; Characteristics of organized violence.

This section reports on the upcoming presidential election in Nicaragua which will take place in October 1924. Two conservatives, Emiliano Chamorro and Carlos Cuadra Pasos, and three liberals, are candidates for the presidency of Nicaragua. As early as March 13, the break of the conservative party into factions supporting respectively the candidacies of Chamorro and Pasos, showed itself in political riots in Managua. Again on April 15, a clash occurred in Granada. On May 8, the Nicaraguan authorities were reported to have frustrated an attempt on the part of the followers of General Chamorro to kidnap President Martinez, and furthermore to have obtained evidence that Chamorro was concentrating forces and caching war materials preparatory to beginning a revolution. This government stated its desire to see elections in the Central American states consummated peacefully, but declined to declare preference regarding candidates. Beyond that, it said that the candidacy for reelection of President Martinez would not be recognized because of his ineligibility under Article 11 of the Treaty of Peace and Amity signed in Washington in 1923.