ABSTRACT
The ambiguities and contradictions within Coalition of Workers, Peasants, and Students of the Isthmus (COCEI) show how characteristics praised by new social movement theorists such as internal democracy, nonviolence, and participation by women appear in complex interaction with other, less obviously praiseworthy attributes. Along with its "threads of violence", COCEI adopted a militant public posture that engendered considerable criticism on the part of some middle-class and elite sympathizers as well as opponents of all classes. One of the primary sources of COCEI's power was the way in which COCEI leaders and the movement itself were consistently viewed, across classes, as having grown from within the pueblo. The chapter demonstrates that COCEI leaders repeatedly chose to advance a dogmatic political ideology and to maintain hostile public and private stances toward leftist political parties, outsiders, and local priistas. Such a practice contrasts with the more tolerant and open stance attributed to contemporary popular movements generally and indeed exhibited by some.
