California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Political Science 349 Spring 2008
Caribbean Politics Dr. Jose M. Vadi
This course is designed to examine the Caribbean region focusing on the major social and economic problems that exist in the region and how governments address those problems. More specifically, we examine the evolution of the region as colonial outposts, its political economy, communal conflict (ethnicity, race, class), gender and the interplay of these factors in shaping the political systems of the region. We will also examine religion, popular culture, and migration (diasporas) both as political inputs and as the products of old colonial structures and of the independent regimes that emerged out of colonialism.
We examine Puerto Rico as a
part of the Caribbean where the United States has had the greatest impact. What
is the nature of this “United States Commonwealth” whose people are U.S.
citizens who serve the U.S. in foreign wars but who cannot vote for the U.S.
president? Why have millions of Puerto Ricans migrated to the United States and
what conditions were they leaving behind? Is this commonwealth a disguised
colony or a model for the rest of the Caribbean? We explore the options of
statehood and independence and the problems attached to each of those
alternatives as well as to the current commonwealth status. Among the issues
that we explore are the existing socioeconomic and fiscal crises, policy issues
such as AIDS policy, drugs, and crime. We will also examine social movements of
resistance such as the Macheteros, the struggle for Vieques Island, and
plebiscitory politics related to Puerto Rico’s status to the United States.
Cuba is the largest nation of the Caribbean that shares a similar history and culture to Puerto Rico but, in contrast, has constructed a socialist government through a revolutionary process. The official U.S. government perception of Cuba is that of a pariah, totalitarian state. Consequently, the U.S. has no official diplomatic relations with Cuba and has imposed an economic blockade onto Cuba for nearly 50 years. In exploring these contrasting situations of Cuba and Puerto Rico, we can explore the consequences of divergent policies and paths of development within the Caribbean region.
Between these polar extremes lie the British, Dutch, French, and Spanish-speaking mini-states of the Caribbean, each seeking to fashion viable economies as they emerge out of long periods of colonial rule. Time permitting, we will compare the Spanish-speaking Caribbean to the English-speaking Caribbean with particular reference to Trinidad-Tobago and Jamaica.
Class texts:
Jose Trías Monge, Puerto Rico:
The Trials of the Oldest Colony in the World (Yale University Press, 1997)
Philip Brenner,et al, A Contemporary Cuba Reader: Reinventing the Revolution
(Rowman & Littlefield, 2008)
R. Hillsman & Thomas D’Agostino, Understanding the Contemporary
Caribbean (Rienner, 2003)
In addition, there are articles that are part of the required reading and that will be on electronic reserve in the library. You will be able to access these readings from outside of the campus. These readings are identified by an asterisk (*) in the list of readings below.
Grades: Grades will be
determined based on performance using the following criteria. Please do not
tell me what grade you “need” in the course as grades are based on performance.
Essay midterm…….. 30%
Essay final………….30%
Research paper…… 30%
Participation………. 10%
A. Introducing the Caribbean
1. Location and History:
Hillman,
Chapters 1 and 3
2. Caribbean Political Economy:
Hillman, Chapters 4, 5
3. Caribbean Society (Ethnicity, Race, Class, Migration and
Religion)
Hillman,
Chapters 8 and 12
B. Puerto Rico
1. Development to 1930
Trias Monge, pp. 1-88 (Chapters 1 through 8)
2. 1930 to 1960: The Nationalist
Movement, Operation Bootstrap & the Free Associated
State
Trias
Monge, pp. 88-136
*Martin J. Collo, “The Legislative History of
Colonialism: Puerto Rico
and the
United States Congress, 1950-1990,” Journal of Third World
Studies,
Vol. 13 (Spring 1996), pp. 215-232.
3. 1960 to 1990: The Rise and
Fall of the Puerto Rican Economic Model & Decline of the
Free
Associated State
Trías Monge, pp. 136-177
*James Dietz, “The Puerto Rican
Political Economy,” Latin American
Perspectives, Vol. 3, No.3 (Summer, 1976), pp. 36-75.
4.
Puerto Rico Since 1990
- Socioeconomic
Crisis and State Fiscal Crisis
* Francisco L.
Rivera-Batiz and Carlos E. Santiago, Island Paradox:
Puerto
Rico in the 1990s, Chapters 1 and 4
- Social Problems (AIDS,
drugs, crime)
- The Puerto Rican Diaspora
* Francisco L.
Rivera-Batiz and Carlos E. Santiago, Island Paradox:
Puerto
Rico in the 1990s, Chapter 3.
5. Resistance Movements and
Popular Movements
- The Macheteros
*Michael Gonzalez-Cruz,
“The Invasion of Puerto Rico: Occupation and
Resistance to the Colonial State, 1898 to the Present,” Latin American
Perspectives, Vol. 25, No. 5 (Sep., 1998), pp.7-26
*Filiberto Ojeda Rios;
Alicia Del Campo, “The Boricua-Macheteros
Popular Army: Origins, Program, and Struggle,” Latin American
Perspectives,
Vol. 29, No.6 (Nov., 2002), pp. 104-116.
- The Struggle for Vieques
Bosque-Perez, Part
III, chapters 9, 10, 11
- “The Status of the Status:”
Political Parties, New Political Options, and Dilemmas of
Change
*Joseph
E. Fallon, “The Ambigous Status of the U.S. Insular
Territories,” The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies,
Vol.
23, No.2 (Summer, 1998) pp.189-208
*Ruben
Berrios Martinez, “Puerto Rico’s Decolonization,” Foreign
Affairs,
Vol. 76 (November/December 1997) pp. 100-114.
*Rafael
Hernandez, Colon, “Doing Right By Puerto Rico: Congress
Must
Act,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 4 (July/August 1998) pp.112-
114
*Alvin
Z. Rubenstein, “The Case Against Puerto Rican Statehood,”
Orbis,
Vol. 45, No. 3 (Summer 2001), pp. 415-431.
6.
Puerto Rico’s Future
C. Cuba- (All readings are from Brenner et al)
1.
Historical Background and the Cuban Revolution
Brenner, Introduction
Part I (essays by Nelson
Valdes and Saul Landau)
2. Politics
Editor’s
Introduction and
William M.
LeoGrande, “The Cuban Nation’s Single Party”
Hal Klepak, “Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed
Forces…”
Raphael Hernandez,
“On Cuban Democracy: Cuba and the
Democratic Culture”
Damian J.
Fernandez, “Society, Civil Society, and the State: An
Uneasy Three-Way Affair”
Tim Padgett,
“Cuba’s Catholic Dissent: The Saga of Oswaldo
Paya”
3. Economics
Editors’
Introduction and
Pedro Monreal,
“Development as an Unfinished Affair: Cuba After
the Great
Adjustment of the 1990’s”
Mauricio de
Miranda Parrondo, “The Cuban Economy: Amid
Economic
Stagnation and Reversal of Reforms”
Marguerite Rose
Jimenez, “The Political Economy of Leisure”
Minor Sinclair and
Martha Thompson, “Going Against the Grain:
Agricultural
Crisis and Transformation”
Ted Henken, “Vale
Todo: In Cuba’s Paladares, Everything is
Prohibited but
Anything Goes.”
Susan Eckstein,
“Dollarization and Its Discontents: Remittances
and Cuba’s
Remaking in the Post-Soviet Era”
4. Foreign Policy
Editors’
Introduction and
Fidel Castro
Ruz, “Neoliberalism, Global Inequality, and
Irreparable
Destruction of Our Natural
Habitat…”
H. Michael
Erisman, “Cuba’s Counter-Hegemonic Strategy”
Soraya Castro
Mariño, “Like Sisyphus’s Stone…”
Julia Sweig,
“Fidel’s Final Victory”
Wayne
S. Smith, “Wanted: A Logical Cuba Policy”
Leonard
Weinglass, “The Cuban five and the U.S. War Against
Terror”
5. Society
Editors
Introduction and
Mirén Uriarte,
“Social Impact of the Economic Measures”
Maria Isabel
Dominguez, “Cuban Youth: Aspirations, Social
Perceptions, and Identity”
Alejandro de la
Fuente, “Recreating Racism: Race and
Discrimination
in Cuba’s Special Period”
Margaret Crahan,
“Civil Society and Religion in Cuba: Past,
Present, and Future”
6. Fidel Castro’s Retirement and the “Cuban Transition”
Reading to be
assigned for discussion.
Office Hrs.
Mondays and Wednesdays………..4 to 5 pm
Tuesdays and Thursdays………….2 to 3 pm
Location: Building 94, Room 312
Telephone: 869-3881 (I prefer e-mail)
E-mail: jmvadi@csupomona.edu
Website: http://www.intranet.csupomona.edu/~jmvadi