Can Central America Break the Cycle of Drugs, Corruption and Gang War?

Posted: June 18th, 2017

By Michael Shifter

Michael Shifter is president of the Inter-American Dialogue. Since 1993, Mr. Shifter has been adjunct professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service, where he teaches Latin American politics. Prior to joining the Inter-American Dialogue, Mr. Shifter directed the Latin American and Caribbean program at the National Endowment for Democracy and, before that, the Ford Foundation's governance and human rights program in the Andean region and Southern Cone where he was based in Lima, Peru, and subsequently, in Santiago, Chile.

By Ben Raderstorf

Ben Raderstorf joined the Inter-American Dialogue in 2015 and is a program associate with the Peter D. Bell Rule of Law Program. He coordinates the Dialogue's program work and research on corruption, citizen security, and judicial issues as well as U.S. foreign policy towards Latin America. He also organizes the Dialogue's Working Group on Latin America and many of its regular events, conferences, and meetings. Raderstorf previously worked for the Chilean Ministry of Finance in Santiago, and has lived or spent time in Argentina, Peru, Chile, Uruguay, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, the Dominican Republic, and Mexico. He graduated from Harvard University with a degree in social studies, focusing on globalization and democracy in Latin America.

As the Trump Administration proposes cutting aid to Central America – and as American, Central American, and Mexican leaders met in Miami last week to discuss development and security in the region – The Cipher Brief’s Kaitlin Lavinder asked Michael Shifter and Ben Raderstorf of the Inter-American Dialogue why Central America is so violent and why the U.S. has an interest in stabilizing its southern neighbors.

The Cipher Brief: Central America – particularly the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras – is highly violent. Why? What are the driving factors of violence and instability in the region? Has this improved or worsened over the past years?

“The Cipher Brief has become the most popular outlet for former intelligence officers; no media outlet is even a close second to The Cipher Brief in terms of the number of articles published by formers.” —Sept. 2018, Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 62

Access all of The Cipher Brief’s national security-focused expert insight by becoming a Cipher Brief Subscriber+ Member.

Subscriber+