Violation of every right in Nicaragua, a Personal and Collective Perspective

By 1960, Nicaragua per capita GDP was above that of South Korea. Today South Korea’s per capita GDP is 17 times that of Nicaragua. Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Currently governed by a brutal dictatorship, Nicaragua is a case study of how a country can fail. In their influential book Why Nations Fail Acemoglu and Robinson explore from a historic and economic perspective the failure of nations throughout history and geography. The existence of extractive institutions and weak rules are fundamental elements in explaining the failure of societies and economies. Using Acemoglu and Robinson’s book as a conceptual framework and guide, the project consists of illustrating Nicaragua as a special case of failure. The idea is to identify specific historical events that marked the destiny of the country, as opposed to neighbouring ones such as Costa Rica which took a different path.