Few events have captured the imagination of progressive countries and parties worldwide as did the July 1979 Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. Many of these parties became strong supporters of the Ortega government and were thus quite taken by surprise — as were most of those involved and engaged in Central American politics — by the outcome of the Nicaraguan election in February 1991. One such party, one of the most determined in its support of the Sandinistas, was Sweden's Social Democratic Party (Socialdemokratiska Arbetare Partlet or SAP), even though Sweden may not immediately come to mind as a natural participant in Central American politics. How can this intense Swedish Social Democratic involvement and partisanship be explained? How has Swedish support been translated into practical positions? Did the election victory of Violeta Chamorro, who was supported by the United States (a country whose Central American policy came under relendess fire by the SAP), signal the end of Swedish Social Democratic engagement in Nicaraguan politics?

The Issue of the Distribution of income is once again emerging as a critical component in the debates regarding Latin America's development path in the 1990s and as a factor underlying the proposed Enterprise of the Americas Initiative (EAI). I will argue that the degree of income inequality in the Latin American societies will prove to be an obvious, if unnoticed, obstacle to social progress which will affect the operation and outcome of the Initiative. In this essay, I review some of the hypotheses and recent findings from the research on income distribution. I shall contrast the conditions of the growth decades of the 1960s and 1970s with the “lost” decade of the 1980s. What have we learned, and what have we avoided learning during these years? How many of the initial conditions which the Alliance for Progress aimed at remedying 30 years ago are still with us?