Central America has received renewed attention from U.S. policymakers over the past few years as the region has become a major transit corridor for illicit drugs and a significant source of irregular migration to the United States. These narcotics and migrant flows are the latest symptoms of deep-rooted challenges in several countries in the region, including widespread insecurity, fragile political and judicial systems, and high levels of poverty and unemployment. Although the Obama Administration and governments in the region launched new initiatives designed to improve conditions in Central America, the future of those efforts will depend on the decisions of the Trump Administration and the 115th Congress. U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America The Obama Administration determined it was in the national security interests of the United States to work with Central American governments to address conditions in the region. Accordingly, the Obama Administration launched a new, whole-of-government U.S. Strategy for Engagement in Central America. The new strategy takes a broader and more comprehensive approach than previous U.S. initiatives in the region and is based on the premise that efforts to promote prosperity, improve security, and strengthen governance are mutually reinforcing and of equal importance. The new strategy focuses primarily on the "northern triangle" countries of Central America-El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras-which face the greatest challenges. Nevertheless, it also provides an overarching framework for U.S. engagement with the other countries in the region: Belize, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama. The new U.S. strategy and the northern triangle governments' Alliance for Prosperity initiative have similar objectives and fund complementary efforts; however, they have prioritized different activities. Initial Funding and Conditions Congress has appropriated $1.4 billion to begin implementing the new Central America strategy, dividing the funds relatively equally among efforts to promote prosperity, strengthen governance, and improve security. This figure includes $750 million appropriated in FY2016 and $655 million appropriated in FY2017 (through P.L. 114-113 and P.L. 115-31, respectively). Congress placed strict conditions on the aid, requiring the northern triangle governments to address a range of concerns, including border security, corruption, and human rights, to receive assistance. As a result of those legislative requirements, delays in the budget process, and congressional holds, most of the FY2016 funding did not begin to be delivered to Central America until early 2017. The State Department has yet to certify that any of the northern triangle countries have met the legislative requirements for FY2017. Future Appropriations and Other Policy Issues Congress is now considering President Trump's FY2018 budget request, which would cut funding for the Central America strategy by $195 million, or 30%, compared to the FY2017 estimate. As Congress deliberates on the future of the Central America strategy, it may examine a number of policy issues. These issues include the funding levels and strategy necessary to meet U.S. objectives; the extent to which Central American governments are demonstrating the political will to undertake domestic reforms; the utility of the conditions placed on assistance to Central America; and the potential implications of changes to U.S. immigration, trade, and drug control policies for U.S. objectives in the region.

Central America faces significant security challenges. Criminal threats, fragile political and judicial systems, and social hardships such as poverty and unemployment contribute to widespread insecurity in the region. Consequently, improving security conditions in these countries is a difficult, multifaceted endeavor. Because U.S. drug demand contributes to regional security challenges and the consequences of citizen insecurity in Central America are potentially far-reaching, the U.S. is collaborating with countries in the region to implement and refine security efforts. Contents of this report: (1) Introduction; (2) Background: Scope of the Problem: Underlying Societal Conditions; Structural Weaknesses in Governance; Criminal Threats; (3) Efforts within Central America; (4) U.S. Policy: Background on Assistance to Central America; Central America Regional Security Initiative; (5) Additional Issues for Congressional Consideration: Funding Issues; Human Rights Concerns; Relation to Other U.S. Government Policies; (6) Outlook. Figures and tables. This is a print on demand report.

Most non-Central Americans think of the narrow neck between Mexico and Colombia in terms of dramatic past revolutions and lauded peace agreements, or sensational problems of gang violence and natural disasters. In this volume, the contributors examine regional circumstances within frames of democratization and neoliberalism, as they shape lived experiences of transition. The authors--anthropologists and social scientists from the United States, Europe, and Central America--argue that the process of regions and nations "disappearing" (being erased from geopolitical notice) is integral to upholding a new, post-Cold War world order--and that a new framework for examining political processes must be accessible, socially collaborative, and in dialogue with the lived processes of suffering and struggle engaged by people in Central America and the world in the name of democracy.

The idea that the United States can and should help Latin America achieve democracy has been a recurrent theme in US foreign policy throughout the 20th century, but systematic analysis of the history of US efforts has been lacking. In 14 essays by scholars from the US, Latin America, and Europe, motives, methods, and results are explored, revealing little enduring success and much that has been counterproductive. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Freedom in the World, the Freedom House flagship survey whose findings have been published annually since 1972, is the standard-setting comparative assessment of global political rights and civil liberties. The survey ratings and narrative reports on 195 countries and fifteen territories are used by policymakers, the media, international corporations, civic activists, and human rights defenders to monitor trends in democracy and track improvements and setbacks in freedom worldwide. The Freedom in the World political rights and civil liberties ratings are determined through a multi-layered process of research and evaluation by a team of regional analysts and eminent scholars. The analysts used a broad range of sources of information, including foreign and domestic news reports, academic studies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, individual professional contacts, and visits to the region, in conducting their research. The methodology of the survey is derived in large measure from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and these standards are applied to all countries and territories, irrespective of geographical location, ethnic or religious composition, or level of economic development.

The transition to democracy underway in Latin America since the 1980s has recently witnessed a resurgence of interest in experimenting with new forms of local governance emphasizing more participation by ordinary citizens. The hope is both to foster the spread of democracy and to improve equity in the distribution of resources. While participatory budgeting has been a favorite topic of many scholars studying this new phenomenon, there are many other types of ongoing experiments. In Barrio Democracy in Latin America, Eduardo Canel focuses our attention on the innovative participatory programs launched by the leftist government in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the early 1990s. Based on his extensive ethnographic fieldwork, Canel examines how local activists in three low-income neighborhoods in that city dealt with the opportunities and challenges of implementing democratic practices and building better relationships with sympathetic city officials.

After decades of bloodshed and political terror, many lament the rise of the left in Latin America. Since the triumph of Castro, politicians and historians have accused the left there of rejecting democracy, embracing communist totalitarianism, and prompting both revolutionary violence and a right-wing backlash. Through unprecedented archival research and gripping personal testimonies, Greg Grandin powerfully challenges these views in this classic work. In doing so, he uncovers the hidden history of the Latin American Cold War: of hidebound reactionaries holding on to their power and privilege; of Mayan Marxists blending indigenous notions of justice with universal ideas of equality; and of a United States supporting new styles of state terror throughout the region. With Guatemala as his case study, Grandin argues that the Latin American Cold War was a struggle not between political liberalism and Soviet communism but two visions of democracy—one vibrant and egalitarian, the other tepid and unequal—and that the conflict’s main effect was to eliminate homegrown notions of social democracy. Updated with a new preface by the author and an interview with Naomi Klein, The Last Colonial Massacre is history of the highest order—a work that will dramatically recast our understanding of Latin American politics and the role of the United States in the Cold War and beyond. “This work admirably explains the process in which hopes of democracy were brutally repressed in Guatemala and its people experienced a civil war lasting for half a century.”—International History Review “A richly detailed, humane, and passionately subversive portrait of inspiring reformers tragically redefined by the Cold War as enemies of the state.”—Journal of American History

The renowned activist examines the brutal reality of America’s Cold War era foreign policy across Central America—with a new preface by the author. First published in 1986, Turning the Tide presents Noam Chomsky’s expert analysis of three interrelated questions: What was the aim and impact of the US Central American policy? What factors in US society supported and opposed that policy? And how can concerned citizens affect future policy? Chomsky demonstrates how US Central American policies implemented broader US economic, military, and social aims—while claiming a supposedly positive impact on the lives of people in Central America. A particularly revealing focus of Chomsky's argument is the world of US academia and media, which Chomsky analyzes in detail to explain why the US public is so misinformed about our government's policies.