Reality in Writing : Caribbean Political Economy

March 28, 2013 NACLA.org In the most recent Canadian budget, it was announced that the Canadian International Development Agency was being “modernized.” Going forward, CIDA will no longer function as a separate governmental agency, but instead it will be folded into the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Shutting down an ineffective and often interventionist agency like CIDA would often be greeted with goodwill in progressive circles—especially due to its checkered history and limited success. However, one has to hand it to the Canadian government, who managed to shut down a poorly functioning agency only to replace it with something worse. This shift to “modernize” Canada’s development agency will now most certainly make it less transparent, democratic, and accountable. It also sets a regressive example for other governments to follow.   The “modernization” of Canada’s development agenda seeks to limit the amount of money spent on develop

March 22, 2013 NACLA.org There is an alarming need for political and institutional innovation in the Caribbean. Across the region there is a familiar narrative whereby economies are in a tailspin, austerity reigns, traditional sources of trade and aid are no longer in effect, opportunities are harder to come by, and the aspiration of many youth is to simply get their hands on a visa to go abroad. The obstacles to the achievement of genuine, self-directed development are so numerous and varied that Norman Girvan of the University of the West Indies has put forward that the Caribbean is currently facing what he calls “existential threats.” He defines existential threats as “a constellation of economic, social and environmental pressures that threaten the viability of our societies as functional entities in any meaningful sense. And these challenges are too wide in scope and too vast in scale for any one Caribbean country to cope with by itself.” In a speec

March 7, 2012 NACLA.org   President Hugo Chavez—perhaps more than any other Latin American politician—sought to build bridges with the Caribbean, to unite two regions which have so much in common, but for far too long remained divided by the entrenched legacies of colonialism. While many other articles have turned to focus on the economic consequences his death might potentially bring to the Caribbean, a remembrance of all that he had done both for and with the region seems more fitting. Since his election in 1999, Chavez always thought in terms of the Latin and Caribbean region as a whole—instead of divided nation states. While the links between Cuba and Venezuela are more readily apparent and obvious, it was not long before Chavez began to forge deep and meaningful relationships with the English and Kreyol speaking Caribbean. By 2009, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas  (ALBA), which originally consisted of Venezuela and Cuba, had expanded to include the C