When it is invoked to describe nations, banana republic conjures up a range of clichés and caricatured images of US-Central American and Caribbean diplomatic relations in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Banana republics referred to countries led by dictators, oligarchs, and “strongmen” who ruled over indigenous and/or mixed-race peasants and managed economies dependent on agricultural exports, stereotypically coffee or bananas.
