Costa Rica: Political Pamphlets

Studies, pamphlets, reports, factbooks, manifestos, platforms, proposals and other miscellaneous materials issued by ALOP, Centro de Capacitacin Campesina (Costa Rica), Centro de Capacitacin para el Desarrollo, Centro Nacional de Accin Pastoral (Costa Rica), Centro Victor Sanabria, Encuentro Nacional de Pescadores Artesanales, Equipo Pastoral Puntarenas, Institute for the Comparative Study of Political Systems (U.S), Partido Democrtico del Pueblo, Presidential Commision on the University for Peace, Programa Centroamericano de Desarrollo de las Ciencias Sociales, Soberana.

Costa Rica's political stability during the period covered here stands in marked contrast to the situation in other countries in the region. Since 1949 it has been a presidential democracy in which regime change has come through the ballot box rather than at the end of a gun. The materials here tend not to originate from the major political parties but instead mainly come from organisations concerned with social and economic conditions in Costa Rica, particularly the problems of land reform and the countryside. Internal and external, academic and practical and Christian and secular bodies are all represented.

Randomly within boxes (at present)

Open to all for research purposes; access is free for anyone in higher education.

Description compiled by Daniel Millum, Political Archives Project Officer at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies and the Institute for the Study of the Americas

Records at item level on library catalogue (SASCAT)

Copies can usually be obtained - apply to library staff.

The majority of the materials held in the political archives of the Library of the Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA) originate from the Contemporary Archive on Latin America (CALA), a documentation and research centre on Latin America which donated its holdings to the Institute of Latin American Studies (ILAS) upon its closure in 1981. In 2004 ILAS merged with the Institute of United States Studies (IUSS) to form ISA, which inherited the political archives. The core collection has continued since 1981 to be supplemented by further donations and by materials acquired through the visits of Institute staff and their contacts to the relevant countries.

Further accruals are expected

See also Political Pamphlet material for other countries in the region, as well as related material in the library's main classified sequence, all held in the ISA library.