WHEN POLICY MEETS POLITICS: BORDER DEVELOPMENT AND INTEGRATION IN CENTRAL AMERICA

This research explores new dynamics of integration in Central America through studying the implementation of cross-border development policies. By implementing development policies at the border level, local communities from different countries engage in new forms of social, political and economic cooperation with each other. Therefore, this research explores the causal conditions that .are either necessary or sufficient to create cross-border development policies in Central America. The study included macro and micro context analysis of 20 cities (paired in 10 dyads or cases) across six countries. Furthermore, the research used fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fs/QCA) in the two-step approach to explain the existence of cross-border development policies. By analyzing cross-border cooperation at two levels, the research found that cross-border policies are created when background contexts (remote conditions) and proximate factors (proximate conditions) interact with each other. Two background or “outcome-enabling” conditions were found in the first-step analysis. Six causal paths were found in the second-step analysis as the result of combining both remote and proximate conditions, complying with the rules of equifinality and conjunctural causation in the two-step approach. The results of the research show that specific political configurations at the macro level are necessary to implement certain types of policies at the border level. This is the area where policy meets politics.