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What began as a tool for civilian self-defense in the combat zones during El Salvador's civil war evolved into a means of self-expression that helped define the type of democracy that would govern the country in peacetime. Community radio became the focus of a struggle for participatory democracy in the last decade of the twentieth century, pitting the market logic of communication that had been the dominant model against a diametrically opposed concept of the purpose of communication. Harking back to the lessons that Archbishop Arnulfo Romero taught through YSAX, the radio station that defied the military dictatorship in the late 1970s, and drawing on traditions that refugees developed in exile, community radio stations mobilized local and international support; tested constitutional law in the courts; and, finally, resorted to subterfuge to provide an outlet for alternative communication. By linking together in the Asociacion de Radios y Programas Participativas de El Salvador (ARPAS, Radio and Participative Programs Association of El Salvador), they defended their listeners’ rights as community rights. Their struggle illuminates the limitations of trying to understand a communication system with a logic that is alien to the media producers and their audience. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The non-recurrence of war is mostly considered as the main indicator for successful peace processes. Nevertheless, even in these postwar contexts, other forms of violence – i.e. state repression or homicide – have the potential to endanger the larger process of peace-building. Hence, the analysis of variations in postwar violence is important for the broader peace processes. Three interdependent factors explain variations in postwar violence: the patterns of war termination, policies aiming at the mitigation of the conflict root causes and last but not least institutional reforms. The different experiences of Central American postwar societies show that violence reduction does not require the resolution of major grievances but at least their political recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After decades of authoritarianism and a twelve-year civil war ended by a negotiated peace agreement in 1992, El Salvador is a markedly different country. Despite important changes, however, public institutions have remained largely unresponsive, acute social exclusion persists and violent crime has soared. Rather than the possibly inevitable by-products of a post-conflict situation, these and other developments are the consequences of a regression from an incipient electoral democracy to electoral authoritarianism. The elite-controlled Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) party had more to gain from the preservation of the status quo than from democratic changes and only accepted a politically inclusive system to restore the oligarchy's dominant position through electoral politics. Uncommitted to democratic consolidation, successive ARENA administrations maintained an institutional façade of democracy to reproduce authoritarian governance and defend elite interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]