ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Costa Rica's foreign relations and policy. As a small and relatively poor nation situated near the large and powerful United States, Costa Rica experiences the problems typical of all small powers. Despite centralization of decisionmaking, various domestic political forces struggle to shape Costa Rican foreign policy. The nation's lengthy civil, democratic tradition and its demilitarization in 1949 have shaped its foreign policy: Its democratic tradition has long moved Costa Rica to offer political asylum to those fleeing oppression elsewhere in Latin America. Costa Rica has usually tempered this preference for democracy with pragmatism. One such strategy was to promote import substitution industrialization (ISI), a policy Costa Rica pursued from the 1950s through the 1980s. Costa Rica began to project itself more vigorously into the international arena during the early 1970s. Three contending proposals to solve Costa Rica's geopolitical dilemmas had taken form by the start of the Monge administration: anticommunist, neutralist, and peacemaking.
