This research is concerned with the Contadora peace process initiated by Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama, the international and domestic contexts from which these four states chose tG collectively mediate peace negotiations in Central America. Its primary purpose is to explain how and why these four Latin American countries chose to pursue a foreign policy which continues to find opposition from the Reagan administration. This is in no way a comprehensive explanation of the collectivity. My research has been limited by the publication lag in United Nations documents, the dearth of analytical literature in the study of Latin Am~rican foreign policies, and the non-existence of indexes for Latin American newspapers. I have tried to seek -out more literature than is available through the OSU Edmond Low Library. To this end, I spent five days in the libarary of the University of Texas at Austin's Institute of Latin American Studies.