Beyond the Impasse: Towards a New Political Economy of Development

In seeking to chart a course forward, we begin by utilising recent advances in the IPE literature to reground notions of development squarely in broader conceptions of political economy. In short, we conceive of development as resulting from the complex and dynamic interplay between the structural context and the behaviour of Caribbean agents within it. This assertion, that it is history plus action which gives rise to the nature of the contemporary Caribbean political economy, is surely intuitive to the point of being self-evident. However, if we are also interested in the character and quality of that development, it is not quite enough. As such, the latter part of the chapter will be given to constructing a framework with which we can comprehend the essential characteristics of ‘development’, or, that which we consider, in a necessarily normative yet grounded fashion, should be exhibited by the ‘good society’. By outlining these different components — namely the political, economic and social — we will, by the end of the chapter, and, indeed, Part I of the book, be endowed with the appropriate theoretical tools with which to engage in our empirical audit of the four territories that constitute the study.