This dissertation presents qualitative and quantitative data to analyze how Hurricane Mitch and the foreign aid that followed it affected national and subnational governance in Honduras. Governance is understood as the way a state and its society interact in order to manage their institutions and public affairs. The national level analysis revealed that the state initially became more centralized and authoritarian in response to the disaster while civil society increased its intra-group cooperation and political activity. Foreign donors pressured the Honduran state to alter its relationship with civil society by conditioning its aid and disseminating a development discourse based on concepts such as citizen participation, decentralization and transparency. This foreign pressure though not aimed directly at civil society, nevertheless motivated it to demand political inclusion and change. This domestic and foreign pressure together forced the Honduran government to incorporate civil society in its decision-making processes. This shift towards a more participatory style governance did not represent a dramatic break with the past. The experience of disaster and foreign aid intervention merely accelerated a political transformation that had been underway for at least a decade.; The subnational level analysis sought to determine whether the changes witnessed at the national level had been replicated in different Honduran municipalities. It also tried to ascertain whether the disaster, foreign aid or both were responsible for producing socio-political changes. Four municipalities were selected for this part of the study. One was impacted by both the disaster and foreign aid, another by neither, and the remaining two by only one of the independent variables. The subnational level research suggests that the experience of disaster created a window of opportunity for change but that foreign aid organizations were responsible for much of the socio-political transformations that were observed.
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