Between 1870 and 1940, the Liberals were the predominant political faction of the country. They promoted a state based on a capitalist economy, philosophical positivism and rationalistsecularism especially in education and science.[1] However, these Laissez faire policies became unsustainable due to a series of incidental internal and external situations including the economic crisis caused by the First World War; the increase in poverty and stark economic inequality; harsh working conditions, especially in the banana plantations of the United Fruit Company; the emergence of political-social movements that questioned the model including social-Christians, socialists, communists and anarchists; and the immigration of ethnic groups such as Chinese, Afro-Caribbeans and Italians to work on large urbanization projects such as the Atlantic Railroad. The latter pair of factors intertwined and were especially significant. Italians staged the first strike in the history of Costa Rica, and many immigrants come from countries where the workers' rights and socialist movements were strong.[2][3]
In 1914, the liberal Alfredo González Flores of the Republican Party came to power but without going through the polls. González was appointed by Congress when no candidate in the election reached the vote threshold established by the Constitution.[4] Gonzalez thus lacked the popular support necessary for many of his reforms. He foresaw the exhaustion of the liberal model and initiated a series of interventionist reforms that included creating direct taxes for land and income; creating the first state bank, the International Bank of Costa Rica; implementing the "Tercerillas" (keeping one third of public employees' salary in the form of loans to generate income to the state); and taxing the Grand Capital.[4] Most of these reforms, especially tax reforms, adversely affected the powerful oligarchy. Rumors spread of electoral fraud in the Costa Rican legislative elections of 1915 alongside suggestions that Gonzalez sought to establish an authoritarian regime and re-elect himself in 1918 (consecutive re-election was banned). This led to a coup by the Secretary of War Federico Tinoco in January of 1917 who, in principle, enjoyed popular support based on the April 1917 general election where his was the only name on the ballot.[4] Tinoco's authoritarian measures and the chaotic economic situation soon led to the emergence of strong opposition. The tinoquista dictatorship would last only two years and the Tinoco brothers would be overthrown and exiled in 1919. The constitutional order was restored with the election of Julio Acosta in December 1919.[4]
Jorge Volio Jiménez, a priest and veteran of the Sandino's fight to liberate Nicaragua from US occupation, returned during this period which increased the influence of Catholic social teaching and Christian humanism on Costa Rica's political and social fabric.[2] Volio founded the Reformist Party, the first party of leftist ideas in Costa Rica. He stood for the presidency in 1923 and placed third behind Ricardo Jiménez Oreamuno (Partido Republicano Nacional) and Alberto Echandi Montero (Partido Agrícola). Since, once again, no candidate reached the constitutional threshold for election, Volio was able to negotiate with Jiménez to obtain the vice presidency for himself and two ministries for his party. The republican-reformist alliance faced the candidate Alberto Echandi Montero of the Agricultural Party, which both caucuses opposed as they considered him too right-wing.
Throughout this period, working conditions for many Costa Ricans were deplorable. The working population, influenced by intellectuals and politicians such as Manuel Mora Valverde, Maria Isabel Carvajal and Carlos Luis Fallas (who founded the Workers, Peasants and Intellectuals Bloc, the future Communist Party of Costa Rica), began a massive strike against the United Fruit Company. The 1934 Great Banana Strike involved about 10,000 workers and demanded such rights as wage increases, payment in cash instead of coupons, first aid kits on the farms, and an eight-hour workday.[2][3] Although the strike appeared successful, United Fruit did not follow through on the commitments, increasing both the pressure from workers for more radical reforms and the resistance to those reforms from the oligarchy.[5][6]
Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia became president after the 1940 election as nominee on the Republican ticket. Calderón was a medical doctor educated in Belgium where he came into contact with the social-Christian and humanist political movements. Although originally supported by his political godfather León Cortés Castro (president from 1936 to 1940 and known for his fascist and nazi sympathies), Calderón soon broke with Cortes' powerful oligarchy and initiated a series of economic and social reforms.[7]
The oligarchs were vehemently opposed to these measures and planned a coup d'état against Calderón.[7] Businessman Jorge Hine and one of the plotters tried to enlist the Community Party by contacting leader and deputy Manuel Mora Valverde. Mora declined and warned the President who was able to frustrate the coup.[7] Calderón, eager for allies, reached an agreement with the Mora's party and the Catholic Church led by Monsignor Víctor Manuel Sanabria Martínez. The alliance gave him enough political weight and popular support to promulgate the so call "Social Guarantees".[7] In order to bring the Church into this alliance, the Communist Party of Costa Rica (Partido Comunista de Costa Rica) changed their name to Popular Vanguard Party (Partido Vanguardia Popular),[7] and Calderon rolled back some of the secularizing measures taken by the Liberals. Of particular concern were laws that banned religious education and prohibited Catholic priests from positions as school principals.
The Costa Rican Social Security Fund, a cornerstone of Calderón's reforms, and the University of Costa Rica were both founded in this era. The latter effectively reconstituted the University of Santo Tomás which was closed by an anti-clerical government in 1888 and replaced with schools of Law and Notaries, Medicine and Engineering, Pharmacy, and Fine Arts.[8] The other major reform was embodied by the drafting and approval of the Labor Code that created pioneering labor legislation.[7] Opposition coalesced around conservative groups and oligarchs upset by these reforms, accusations of corruption and electoral fraud, and the persecution of ethnic groups such as Germans, Italians and Japanese during World War II, leading to the outbreak of civil war in 1948.[7]
The 44-day 1948 Civil War brought Otilio Ulate and José Figueres to power. Communists and Republicans were outlawed and their leaders were exile, a move that was a betrayal of both the Ochomogo Pact with the communists and the Mexican Embassy Pact with the calderonistas).[9] According to Figueres, representatives of the Oligarchy urged him to remain in power with their support and that of the press, but he rejected the proposal and informed Ulate.[9] Figueres and his closest advisors formed a Junta which took for 18 months before passing the presidency to Ulate.[9] Despite Figueres' revolt against both Calderón and Mora, he actually agreed with many of their social reforms as he was himself a self-proclaimed Utopian socialist. Figueres and his Junta ruled by decree and made a series of progressive reforms that included abolition of racial segregation (Blacks and Asians could not vote and were banned from travel outside of certain areas, mostly the Limón Province); the creation of the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity; female suffrage as established in the Constitution; and, most notably, the abolition of the Army.[9] An attempted coup by Public Safety Minister Edgar Cardona known as "Cardonazo" was, in part, due to disagreement with this decision.[9]
Welfare State and Carazo's crisis
Costa Rica essentially remained a Welfare State[10] with large public monopolies, many national institutions, a Keynesian guided economy, and state capitalism which has gained it the nickname, "entrepreneur state".[10] This allowed the country to enjoy of one of the biggest middle classes in Latin America (alongside Chile, Uruguay and Argentina) and maintain high health, literacy, and urban development.[10] These advantages came with problems including an increasing fiscal deficit, a gigantic state payroll, and an unsustainable statist economy which started to fracture the Reform State.
The Costa Rican civil war was a civil war in Costa Rica from 12 March to 24 April 1948. The conflict began after the Legislative Assembly of Costa Rica, dominated by pro-government representatives, voted on 1 March 1948 to annul the results of the presidential elections of 8 February, alleging that the triumph of opposition candidate Otilio Ulate over the ruling party's Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia had been achieved by fraud. This triggered an armed uprising led by José Figueres Ferrer, a businessman who had not participated in the elections, against the government of President Teodoro Picado.
The National Union Party is the name of several parties in Costa Rica, generally located on the centre-right of the political spectrum.
Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia was a Costa Rican medical doctor and politician, who served as President from 1940 to 1944.
The name Constitutional was used for several loosely connected Costa Rican parties throughout history.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 8 February 1948. Otilio Ulate Blanco of the National Union Party won the presidential election with 55% of the vote, although the elections were deemed fraudulent by members of the governing National Republican Party. The results were annulled by Congress, leading to the six-week Costa Rican Civil War later that year. Following the war, the results of the parliamentary election were also annulled.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 26 July 1953. José Figueres Ferrer of the National Liberation Party won the presidential election, whilst his party also won the parliamentary election. Voter turnout was 67% in the presidential election and 68% in the parliamentary election. Local elections were also held.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 1 February 1970. Former President José Figueres Ferrer of the National Liberation Party won the presidential election, whilst his party also won the parliamentary election. Voter turnout was 83.3%.
General elections were held in Costa Rica on 2 February 1986. Óscar Arias of the National Liberation Party won the presidential election, whilst his party also won the parliamentary election. Voter turnout was 81.8%.
Costa Rica became a member of the United Nations on November 2, 1945.
The First Costa Rican Republic is the name given to the historical period between the proclamation of the Republic of Costa Rica in the 1848 reformed Constitution and the official decree by then President José María Castro Madriz on 31 August 1848 and the Costa Rican Civil War of 1948 which ended with the enactment of the current 1949 Constitution on 7 November 1949 starting the Second Costa Rican Republic.
Liberalism in Costa Rica is a political philosophy with a long and complex history. Liberals were the hegemonic political group for most of Costa Rica's history especially during the periods of the Free State and the First Republic, however, as the liberal model exhausted itself and new more left-wing reformist movements clashed during the Costa Rican Civil War liberalism was relegated to a secondary role after the Second Costa Rican Republic with the development of Costa Rica's Welfare State and its two-party system controlled by social-democratic and Christian democratic parties.
The Liberal State is the historical period in Costa Rica that occurred approximately between 1870 and 1940. It responded to the hegemonic dominion in the political, ideological and economic aspects of liberal philosophy. It is considered a period of transcendental importance in Costa Rican history, as it's when the consolidation of the National State and its institutions finally takes place.
Social Guarantees were a series of progressive political reforms made in Costa Rica in the 1940s as a result of the alliance between various political and religious figures, for the benefit of the working classes. Although there were several actors behind them, the three main leaders of them were:
The Founding Junta of the Second Republic was a de facto government which existed in the Republic of Costa Rica from May 8, 1948, to November 8, 1949, with the overthrow of the constitutional president Teodoro Picado Michalski, by a group of revolutionaries headed by José Figueres Ferrer.
The Dictatorship of the Tinoco brothers, also Tinochist or Peliquist Dictatorship, or Tinoco regime is the period of Costa Rica in which the military dictatorship led by Federico Tinoco Granados as de facto president and his brother José Joaquín Tinoco Granados as Minister of War was in place. It began after the 1917 Costa Rican coup d'état on January 27, 1917 and culminated with the departure of Tinoco from Costa Rica to France on August 13, 1919 three days after the murder of his brother and after a series of armed insurrections and massive civil protests known as the Sapoá Revolution and the 1919 student civic movement.
Calderonism or Calderonismo is a political and ideological doctrine of Costa Rica, which emerged in the 1940s under the leadership of caudillo Dr. Rafael Ángel Calderón Guardia, before, during and after he was president with his National Republican Party, and which was continued by various political forces such as Unity Coalition, National Unification Party and the current Social Christian Unity Party and its split the Social Christian Republican Party. It is together with Liberacionismo one of the two traditional political tendencies of Costa Rican politics, with which it represented a certain type of Costa Rican bipartisanship from 1986 to 2002 and revolves around the Calderón family. It is a form of populist and Catholic Christian socialism very similar to Argentine Peronism.
Figuerism or Figuerismo is a political and ideological movement in Costa Rica of social democracy and democratic socialism initiated by José Figueres Ferrer, who exercised the presidency of Costa Rica on three occasions; as de facto ruler after the Costa Rican revolution between 1948 and 1949, and then as democratically elected president twice: 1953–1958 and 1970–1974. Several Costa Rican political parties proclaim themselves as continuators of figuerism and as their most faithful representatives, among them the National Liberation Party, Citizens' Action Party and the Patriotic Alliance, all of whom pay homage to the figure of José Figueres and have personalities in their ranks close to the former president Figueres and of figuerist extraction.
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Costa Ricaportal 
