Skip to main content
Fachgebiete
Automobil + Motoren Bauwesen + Immobilien Business IT + Informatik Elektrotechnik + Elektronik Energie + Nachhaltigkeit Finance + Banking Management + Führung Marketing + Vertrieb Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe Versicherung + Risiko
DE
EN
Bücher
Zeitschriften
Themenseiten
Organisationspsychologie Projektmanagement Marketing Smart Manufacturing
Weitere Formate
Podcasts Webinare Technik Webinare Wirtschaft Kongresse Veranstaltungskalender Awards
Jetzt Einzelzugang starten
Zugang für Unternehmen
Referenzkunden
SLX-Digitalkonferenz: Zukunftswerkstatt 2024

Mehr Umsatz mit Top-Kontakten

Am 7. Mai erfahren Sie, wie Vertriebsteams Leadgenerierung, Leadnurturing und Leadstrategien effizient steuern können.
Erweiterte Suche
Anmelden
nach oben

2013 | Buch

Introduction Kapitel lesen Erstes Kapitel lesen

The Political Economy of Caribbean Development

verfasst von: Matthew Louis Bishop

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan UK

Buchreihe : International Political Economy Series

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Einloggen, um Zugang zu erhalten
insite
SUCHEN

Über dieses Buch

A critical analysis of the political economy of development in the Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Introduction

1. Introduction
Abstract
The Caribbean all too rarely features in studies of International Political Economy (IPE). Even when it does, the focus is usually upon the larger countries or the region as a whole is cast in a supporting role in a seemingly more exciting global saga, such as that pertaining to multilateral trade politics. The tiny island microstates in the eastern archipelago, especially, seldom enjoy the lead in their own story (although for two recent exceptions, see Vlcek 2008; Cooper 2011). Moreover, the non-independent Caribbean, which comprises a diverse range of British, Dutch, French, and even American, territories, is even pline with ‘global’ pretensions. This is especially so given that, until comparatively recently, this region was the beating heart of what we now call the Global Political Economy (GPE). ‘King Sugar’, and the wealth that it produced on the back of West Indian slave labour was the commodity that facilitated the growth and development of the industrial West, and these tiny islands held an importance that appears incomprehensible today (Williams 1970, 1980). In 1763, at the end of the Seven Years War, France was prepared to cede the whole of Canada (including Québec) and the American mainland east of the Mississippi River for just the island of Guadeloupe, and the riches that sugar and slaves could provide.
Matthew Louis Bishop

Enduring Structures, Understanding Agency

Frontmatter
2. The Caribbean: A Global History
Abstract
Although all contemporary societies are undoubtedly influenced by their history, the islands and territories of the West Indies are unique in that their colonial and post-colonial experience has been totalising in a way which has few, if any, analogous equivalents elsewhere in the world. Indigenous society was effectively wiped out, and a completely new, Creole one was grafted on top to replace it. Whether British or French (or Dutch or Spanish) the European powers thus created the Caribbean from scratch, in the vortex of a colonialism which has structurally conditioned their consequent historical trajectory. This assertion provides both the theoretical underpinning for the book as a whole, the point of departure for this chapter, and it must not be understated. It is worth quoting Gordon K. Lewis (2004: 3) at length on this point:
Culturally the region possesses its own social forms, ethnic formations, political institutions, and normative values — all of a marked singularity and distinguishing it from the neighbouring mainland societies. All of its member societies … have been shaped throughout by the same architectonic forces of conquest, colonisation, slavery, sugar monoculture, colonialism and racial and ethnic admixture. All of their characteristic problems, lasting into the present day — poverty, persistent unemployment, underdevelopment, economic dependency, social rivalries and ethnic animosities, weak personal and social identity, political fragmentation, and the rest — have their roots in that very background.
Matthew Louis Bishop
3. The Rise and Fall of Caribbean Development Theory
Abstract
Having outlined the broad historical processes which have come to bear structurally on the Caribbean, we now orient the analysis towards questions of agency. In doing so, we trace the thinking of West Indian intellectuals as it relates to questions of development, along with wider debates in development studies and political economy. Despite sharing many similarities in terms of their historical insertion into European imperialism, the different islands of the Anglophone and Francophone Caribbean have since followed sharply divergent developmental paths, which in turn have been influenced by the analyses of their indigenous intellectuals (LaGuerre 1986, 1997). As we have seen, in the latter, prominent thinkers sought active integration into France, whereas in the former, the scholarly thrust was such that most of the region was ‘as anxious’ to secure independence from Britain as London was to offer it (Clarke 1977: 343). However, aside from this obvious difference, some deeper theoretical questions emerge. Why, for example, did French Caribbean intellectuals seek integration, and their Anglophone counterparts seek independence? How did different thinkers conceptualise the developmental problématique beyond decolonisation? How did their ideas fit into wider currents in development thinking? What is the state of indigenous development debates today?
Matthew Louis Bishop
4. Beyond the Impasse: Towards a New Political Economy of Development
Abstract
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.
Matthew Louis Bishop

The Comparative Political Economy of Eastern Caribbean Development

Frontmatter
5. Political Development
Abstract
The first thematic chapter seeks to audit the level and character of ‘political development’ in the four territories. We begin with this theme in order to reflect what Adrian Leftwich (2000) has called ‘the primacy of politics’ in the development process. As such, it makes sense to start with an analysis of the state apparatus available to each territory, and its effectiveness in terms of driving the economic and social development that will be discussed in Chapters 6 and 7, as well as, of course, the nature and quality of political practice that prevails. We will also reflect briefly on the governance challenge facing the Eastern Caribbean before drawing some conclusions.
Matthew Louis Bishop
6. Economic Development
Abstract
The second of our thematic chapters addresses the question of economic development. We begin by outlining some lasting economic legacies before moving on to a detailed examination of the key economic issues. This involves a brief snapshot of the four economies in general, before the chapter unfolds via a discussion of agriculture, services and the economic role of the public sector. It finishes by reflecting on the implications of global change through a case study of the islands’ distinctive changing relationship with the EU.
Matthew Louis Bishop
7. Social Development
Abstract
There are essentially two elements to our discussion of social development. First, we outline the historical legacy, the broad nature of human development and, then, the respective levels of social provision in each territory. We focus, in particular, on health and education. Second, in the latter part of the chapter we will discuss some of the key social concerns in each island, how they manifest themselves, and the ways in which they impact more broadly upon the level and character of development that exists.
Matthew Louis Bishop

Conclusions

Frontmatter
8. Conclusion: The Caribbean, Development and IPE
Abstract
We opened the book by lamenting the relative under-representation of the Caribbean in the extant IPE canon. The core empirical agenda that we have advanced here consequently encompassed an attempt to counterbalance this reality by undertaking a detailed, controlled comparison of the political economy of four of the smallest islands in the region, the development of which has been characterised by a range of subtle — and not so subtle — differences in the post-war period. The analysis was grounded in the notion that contrasting British and French patterns of colonialism, their peculiar approaches to decolonisation, and changing global realities have all come to bear differently on the structural context within which these territories engage in development today. We sought to show how — both theoretically and empirically — it is Caribbean actors, operating within that (often highly constrained) context, which are producing and reproducing development on a daily basis.
Matthew Louis Bishop
Backmatter
Metadaten
Titel
The Political Economy of Caribbean Development
verfasst von
Matthew Louis Bishop
Copyright-Jahr
2013
Verlag
Palgrave Macmillan UK
Electronic ISBN
978-1-137-31610-3
Print ISBN
978-1-349-32105-6
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137316103

Premium Partner

    Bildnachweise