The distribution of development resources in Costa Rica: the effects of the political process

In Costa Rica, the two major political coalitions have been consistently committed to a growth with equity development strategy. When in power, both parties have sought to implement this strategy by distributing resources so as to achieve both economic growth and a broader distribution of development benefits across socio-economic sectors.

Because development assistance capital is designed to facilitate the growth of a modern industrial sector, Costa Rica's decision-makers have made industrialization central to economic expansion. However, the highly participatory nature of that country's political system has forced decision-makers to reconcile industrial demands for resources with demands from other sectors in order to maintain political stability. Thus this study examines how Costa Rica's industrial interests have fared in the battle for resources.

A comparison of the make-up of Costa Rica's major political coalitions and the policy initiatives of the parties when in power reveals the existence of a definite pattern of resource distribution. The distribution of resources seems to have been most influenced by the pattern of variation in decision-makers' responses to different types of demand. The consistency of decision-makers' responses seems to indicate that the nature of the resources distributed to any interest group is particularly determined by the means of political access which has been used to press the demand.

This study concludes that because of the existence of this pattern of distributive policy-making, no single interest group has been able to dominate the distribution of resources in Costa Rica.