TY  - GEN
AB  - Crime, violence, and insecurity are perceived as society’s biggest problems in contemporary
Costa Rica. This degree of priority is especially remarkable because the country has
always been considered the peaceful exception in the violent Central American region. In
this paper I analyze four cornerstones of the nonviolent national self-perception in the
1940s and 1980s as the fundamental basis for the current talk of crime: the civil war, the
abolition of the military, the proclamation of neutrality, and the peace plan for Central
America and the subsequent granting of the Nobel Peace Prize. The result of the analysis is
the determination that these historical cornerstones were not publicly discussed as expressions
of the nonviolent identity for which they are today cited as evidence.
DA  - 2009
DO  - 10.2139/ssrn.1405210
KW  - national identity
KW  - social order
KW  - crime
KW  - Costa Rica
KW  - violence
KW  - public discourse
LA  - eng
PY  - 2009
SP  - 34-
TI  - Contested Cornerstones of Nonviolent National Self-Perception in Costa Rica: A Historical Approach
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0070-pub-25286677
Y2  - 2024-12-25T18:36:19
ER  -