ABSTRACT
This chapter explores Costa Rica's social and economic divisions and some of the nation's main institutions, interest sectors, and groups. Costa Rica's great national myth holds in part that its democracy has roots in a social structure with minimal class divisions and a homogeneous population and culture. The overall impact of the economic crisis of the 1980s upon this social structure has not fully played out, but by the mid-1990s some effects had become apparent. A national economic and fiscal crisis in the early 1880s forced Costa Rica to review its commitment to education. Under the conservative tutelage of Archbishop Carlos Humberto Rodriguez Quiros, most social activism was squashed. The shared culture has helped keep Costa Rica considerably more peaceable than its neighbors, but it has not prevented inequality, social mobilization, conflict, and political turmoil. Only Costa Ricans may own mass communications media, but the law has been evaded on occasion when convenient for political reasons.
