To many scholars, journalists, and policymakers, Costa Rica stands apart from its northern neighbors as a shining democracy. Yet the cost of that democracy is often overlooked. Starting after the 1948 civil war with the bloody repression of the Partido Vanguardia Popular (the country's communist party, which was banned for nearly two decades) and union activists, Costa Rican democracy has been imperfect. Moreover, the social democracy that allowed Costa Rica to chart a peaceful development path was constructed atop a crushed labor movement. Although by the mid-1970s both the Left and the labor movement had become legal again, the prior limitations of democracy had significant if unequal effects throughout society. This democracy deficit in the 1960s and 1970s has received relatively little attention in the historiography.
Ivan Molina Jiménez's Huelgas democratizadoras does a fine job of filling this lacuna. In 1971, the Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica (ITCR) was founded...
