Si Nicaragua Venció, El Salvador Vencerá: Central American Agency in the Creation of the U.S.–Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement

Abstract

Throughout the 1980s one of the Reagan administration's most contested foreign policy initiatives was that toward Central America, where it attempted to defeat the Salvadoran guerrillas and overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. Reagan's policy was challenged by civil society organizations, whose efforts to undermine support for Reagan's policy came to be known as the Central American Peace and Solidarity Movement (CAPSM). What were the origins of this movement? I argue that previous explorations of the CAPSM's emergence are inadequate because they neglect the role played by Central Americans as purposive actors in the movement's rise and development. This article documents the ways in which Nicaraguans and Salvadorans, both in Central America and in the United States, played crucial roles in this transnational movement's creation and growth.