Globalization, Governance, and the Emergence of Indigenous Autonomy Movements in Latin America: The Case of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

A revisiting of Salvador Marti i Puig's approach to globalization and the turn toward governance in explaining the roots and impact of the political mobilization of Latin America's indigenous peoples since the 1990s recasts governance as a disciplinary regime that in the case of Nicaragua co-opted potentially radical oppositional movements into the neoliberal project that accompanied Latin America's democratic transition. The discussion takes as its empirical case the autonomy process on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, which in its twenty-fifth year represents the most sustained devolution of power to indigenous peoples in Latin America.