Introducing political considerations into technical plans: A case study of nicaragua's economic reorganization in a post sandinista administration

Planners and politicians do not always agree on the best way of distributing resources. Usually, planners take to a technical strategy while politicians take to a constituent building strategy. The differences in opinion between planners and politicians is most acute in Nicaragua's post Sandinista Administration. Nicaraguan planners are addressing enormous economic problems while simultaneously trying to obtain outside assistance form the Multinational Financial Institutions (World Bank, IMF, Inter-American Development Bank). Politicians, on the other hand, are trying to stabilize the country's political system after a decade of the marxist Sandinista's control. The desperate political and economic situation in Nicaragua has made the already troubled marriage between planners and politicians more tenuous.

In this paper we evaluate the inconsistencies between the technical and political modes of decision making. We draw on a case study of implementing a technical economic plan for the Nicaraguan government in 1992 to illustrate the differences of opinion between planners and politicians. In addition, we use the Nicaraguan case study to explore some considerations for reducing these inconsistencies.