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Chapter 1: From the Northern Triangle to Northern Europe: How Good Governance Can Rescue Central America -- Chapter 2. Economic Reform Priorities and the Governance Trap -- Chapter 3. Enhancing Global Engagement -- Chapter 4. Conclusions and Potential Futures.

Abstract: Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are weighed down by high crime, sluggish economies, and heavy reliance on remittances. And when significant political change has taken place, it has resulted in frightening political fragmentation.

The COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally altered the global economic landscape, with the smallest and most vulnerable economies particularly hard hit. In the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, the crisis has cost lives and livelihoods. It has impacted both the demand and supply sides of the economy, posing difficult policy tradeoffs. Risks to macroeconomic stability are now growing. Each country will likely exit the crisis with an even greater need for reform. Escaping the Governance Trap: Economic Reform in the Northern Triangle provides a framework for understanding the challenges of those three Central American nations, proposing that the lack of governing capacity in each country is a crucial problem. This book argues that economic reforms can help the Northern Triangle countries escape their governance traps and identifies priority areas of economic reform. Sectors covered include fiscal policy, monetary and exchange rate policy, financial access and deterrence, and structural reforms. It also highlights the role that stakeholders like the United States can play to help in these reform efforts, and how those outcomes affect the United States and the global community. All told, Escaping the Governance Trap provides an accessible, direct account of the Northern Triangle's economic challenges and how to fix them. Neil Shenai served as the U.S. Treasury's Financial Attaché to Mexico and Central America from 2016-2018. He is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of Social Finance: Shadow Banking during the Global Financial Crisis (Palgrave MacMillan, 2018). He received his PhD from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies..

AbstractWe utilize insights from previous qualitative research to explore fathering among immigrant fathers from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras (the Northern Triangle of Central America). We present a conceptual model of transnational fathering practices in order expand beyond common cultural frameworks that are used to examine within‐group differences for Latino fathers. We describe four key practices of transnational fathering: (1) negotiation of illegality, (2) providing from the shadows, (3) maintenance of transnational family networks, and (4) communication with mobile families via information technology. This model can expand our understanding of and practice with immigrant and refugee families who live between and within multiple national borders.

AbstractWith declines in migration from Mexico, the countries of the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) – El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala – are now responsible for some of the largest increases in the population density of Latinos in the United States. Using data from the 5‐year estimates of the 2016 American Community Survey and the Atlas of Rural and Small‐Town America, this article provides a spatial framework for settlement among NTCA immigrants in America. Findings illustrate that, unlike previous streams of Latino migration, which tended to be more agriculturally driven, NTCA immigrants are likely to choose settlement destinations in densely populated counties which support manufacturing rather than those which are farming dependent. We also find that while NTCA communities are predominant in new destinations like Prince Georges and Montgomery counties Maryland, they are also dominant in older Latino destinations like Harris County, Texas and Los Angeles county, California.

AbstractThis study conceptualizes the mediated discussions of migration in Central America as narratives, arguing for the need to examine the broader contours of policy‐related migration reporting across time. Using machine learning and text mining analyses, combined with qualitative narrative analysis, the study examines 53,441 news articles from 17 US, Mexican and Northern Triangle media outlets from 1999 to 2019, tracing and critiquing the shifts in coverage. Findings suggest that all three media systems generally align in their depiction of the scene, key agents and acts regarding migration; however, US narratives increasingly diverge from Northern Triangle and Mexican narratives regarding the purpose and instruments by which migration occurs, with US value claims narrowing over time emphasizing border security. This narrative trajectory within US media ignores migrants' determination and underlining rationales for migration, pushing them to take increasingly dangerous means to migrate to the USA and exacerbating the situation for all parties.