ABSTRACT
Agrarian issues such as land use and distribution have consequently been central to the political rhetoric and platforms of progressive movements and to their policies—and even survival—when they are in power. Contrasting agrarian reform programs were at the heart of the different developmental models pursued in the early 1980s by the governments of El Salvador and Nicaragua. More conservative groups in Central America also have been preoccupied with agrarian issues. Agrarian structures, issues, and conflicts, then, play a central role in contemporary Central American politics. Several attempts at agrarian reform have been made in Central America during the postwar period, but there have been great variations among them, especially in scope and the seriousness of intent. The Sandinista government made agrarian reform central to its program for the transformation of society. The agrarian transformation of the postwar period changed the lives of most rural people in Central America, in many cases substantially.
