Possibilities of a Territorial Ordering for the Transition in Nicaragua

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Abstract
The object of this paper is an analysis of the possibilities of a politically oriented territorial transformation in the process of building a new state in Nicaragua. Three central questions are posed. How should the struggle of popular sectors be connected with the contradictions associated with territorial organization? Is there an autonomy of the spatial, that is, is spatial concentration simply a product of capitalism? Does the construction of socialism necessitate decentralization, or does spatial concentration remain in socialism because it is a universal tendency associated with the nature of technology? Not even neoclassical conceptions of territorial organization, nor those of the new Marxist school (which analyzes the society–space relationship in universal terms), are effective in orienting popular struggles. To advance the analysis of the relationship between the political and the territorial, we require an examination of concrete situations. In the paper are thus presented some basic concepts relating to the territorial or spatial and the social, the specific relationship between a society in transition and space; the present territorial transformations in Nicaragua and the problems and contradictions they have generated are then analyzed. It is argued that it is political orientation that should regulate the definition of new patterns of territorial organization. Spatial structures show a certain rigidity which retards transformation and they therefore cannot be part of the revolutionary project, but must rather be a consequence of the social transformations. Regionalization is an end-state and not a point of departure. If the politico-administrative structures do not coincide with those of production and reproduction, it will be difficult to establish a substantive democracy and decentralization.

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