Conflicts about Nicaragua’s Interoceanic Canal Project: framing, counterframing and government strategies

Abstract

This article explores the contemporary relation between Nicaragua’s governing party, the FSLN, and social movements by analyzing a paradigmatic case: the protest movement against the plans to build an Interoceanic canal through the country. By employing the perspective of framing and counterframing, the article analyses how different actors frame their promises and predictions regarding the project’s possible consequences. Special emphasis is put on the Nicaraguan government’s strategies of argumentation, threatening, and co-optation. The article shows how the government took the decision to build an Interoceanic Canal in a top-down manner and refused to respond to sceptics and critics of the Canal plans. The FSLN first ignored, then tried to control the movement, which emerged autonomously from its party structure and networks. As these attempts failed, it first repressed before then trying to coopt (different parts) of the protest movement.