The Dominican Republic

A Caribbean Crucible, Second Edition

Howard J. Wiarda, Michael J Kryzanek

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• Edition: 2
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000316001
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Much has occurred in the Dominican Republic since the first edition of this critically acclaimed profile was published ten years ago: Democratic government has become more firmly established, if no less contentious, and the fragile economy, though still the definitive element in Dominican life, has benefited from changes in global trade patterns and corporate investment. Yet the Dominican Republic remains a nation mired in poverty and social tension. As the country heads toward the quincentennial of Columbus's landing in the New World, there is both anticipation and apprehension as the citizenry looks back proudly to their heritage and forward to a future clouded by uncertainties. This edition examines the changing character of governance and the political changes that have returned Joaquin Balaguer to the presidency for an unprecedented sixth term. The economic transitions that have made the Dominican Republic an attractive site for foreign business and tourism are also addressed, along with the economic causes of urban and rural unrest and the emigration of Dominicans to Puerto Rico and the United States. Critical public policy issues such as energy, taxation, population control, and education are explored, together with the social and political conflicts created by debt, austerity, and fiscal reform. Finally, the authors analyze the Dominican Republic's relations with its neighbors and major trading partners, giving special emphasis to the impact of new global and regional ties. Throughout, they focus on the struggle to maintain democracy in the face of the inevitable dislocations caused by economic reform and modernization.

1
Introduction

The importance of the Dominican Republic as a significant and influential member of the Latin American community of nations has seldom been recognized. Attention ebbs and flows, but most of it has been devoted to the larger and more populous countries of the area: those that are oil-rich or whose revolutions make dramatic headlines. The Dominican Republic, barely the size of South Carolina and with a population of approximately seven million, has frequently been overshadowed by countries whose natural resources, demographic figures, or internal politics put them in the spotlight of international attention.

The Dominican Republic may not hold the answer to the "mystery" of Latin America. Nor can it always compete for attention and notoriety with Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, or Mexico. Nevertheless, the Dominican Republic is an important nation, strategically located in the vortex of the Caribbean hurricane, a weather vane and direction pointer within the area, Dominican intellectual and former president Juan Bosch has written a book discussing the Caribbean as an "imperial frontier" during the past five hundred years, with the Dominican Republic at its center; and at least since the time of President James Polk, the United States has been interested in the strategic importance of the island, paying close attention to both its international connections and its internal politics. And, as stated in our preface, the Dominican Republic has had virtually everything the student of Latin American affairs might look for: great drama, conflict, and change.

The Dominican Republic is, in many respects, a microcosm of the entire area. Within this small nation's borders and throughout its history, it is possible to see all the wrenching divisions, developmental dilemmas, crises, and controversies characteristic of Latin America. The country has endured repeated interventions by foreign powers; those by the United States, from 1916 to 1924 and 1965 to 1966, are only the most recent. It continues to balance precariously between its strongly authoritarian traditions on the one hand and its democratic tradition on the other, now complicated by the presence of various Socialist strains. It has to cope with the vicious circles of underdevelopment and the anxiety of a one-crop (sugar) dependent economy. It experiences the social upheavals and conflict precipitated by immense class differences and accelerated social change and the perpetual political tensions generated by the claims of rival elites who have largely incompatible views of how these problems should be met.

The Dominican Republic is not only a "central depository" of all that is Latin American, but it has also been a "living laboratory" for new social and political experiments. It has had its order-and-progress dictators, its periods of republican rule alternating with modernizing tyrannies, its eras of populism and change, a bloody revolution and civil war in 1965 that led to U.S. intervention, and a U.S.-sponsored recovery, and it is now adjusting to the challenges posed by a more open, competitive, and contentious democracy. In short, the Dominican Republic has often been a pacesetter for the rest of Latin America, both for good and for ill—a nation that has been a proving ground and, when the U.S. Marines landed, an alarm system. In the process, it has been the focus of numerous hemispheric conflicts in recent decades.

The Dominican Republic has frequently provided a fascinating preview of important shifts in the directions of Latin American political change and of U.S. policy toward the area. In 1905, the Dominican Republic provided the world with a first glimpse of the infamous Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, under which the United States forcibly intervened in at least a half-dozen Latin American countries. In the regime of Rafael Trujillo, the Dominican Republic produced one of the world's longest-lived and most tightly knit dictatorships; his bloody rule increased our understanding of authoritarian and totalitarian control but was not very pleasant for many Dominicans. Trujillo's rule also provides an interesting case study of how the United States bolsters dictators who support its policies and then moves to undermine and, in this case, even assassinate them when they have outlived their usefulness.

For a time, the Dominican Republic was the showcase for the ill-fated U.S. aid program known as the Alliance for Progress. It was also in the Dominican Republic that the showcase shattered and the alliance collapsed—first when Juan Bosch's democratic government was overthrown in 1963 and then definitively in 1965 when the United States sent its marines to crush a Bosch-led democratic revolution. The U.S. intervention there was a prelude to its even more massive intervention in Vietnam and signaled to the rest of Latin America that the United States would not permit revolutionary change in what it considered its sphere of influence. In 1978, however, the United States intervened again, this time diplomatically instead of militarily, to enable an elected Dominican social-democratic government to take power, rather than be overthrown by a military coup even before its inauguration. In the 1990s, the role of the United States in Dominican affairs has changed significantly. Due in large part to concern with instability and revolution in Central America and dwindling foreign aid dollars, Washington no longer views the Dominican Republic as a simmering security problem, as it did in the 1960s. The strengthening of democratic practice since 1978, coupled with growing interest in the country as a center of assembly plants, tourism, and agribusiness, has shifted Dominican attention toward trade, modernization, and economic reform. The Dominican Republic is not a hotbed of unrest nor a potential "second Cuba." Rather, in its relationship with the United States, the government of Joaquin Balaguer is mainly concerned with enhancing export opportunities, attracting investment, and renegotiating private and public debts.

The changeover from political tinderbox to anxious participant in economic development does not diminish the importance of the Dominican Republic as a beacon signaling the way of hemispheric changes in U.S.-Latin American relations. The initiatives taken by the Dominicans to make their country more attractive to foreign investors and their involvement in Caribbean trade places them in the forefront of the movement to reorganize the way in which this region deals with the outside world. As a result of innovative economic and political experiments, the Dominican Republic has enhanced its reputation as a frequent pacesetter in the hemisphere.

To introduce the Dominican Republic as innovator and bellwether and as having strategic significance beyond its size is to miss some other of its essential strengths, which makes it even more crucial that we give it our attention. The fact is that the Dominican Republic is a fascinating country in its own right. It has been struggling for five hundred years, against foreign occupiers and internal chaos, to establish its own institutional framework for development. Historically characterized by a lack of institutions—feudal or capitalist, conservative or liberal—the Dominican Republic has worked valiantly to fill this organizational void. Whether this effort will succeed, precisely what form its institutions will take, whether it is possible to blend outside influences and indigenous traditions—all these are still unknown. Only one thing is certain: The forms that are devised, the group and personal interrelations, the policy processes, and the habits of behavior and cultural patterns will be typically Dominican.

The profile of the Dominican Republic that is presented here will thus seek to explore the country from a number of vantage points. Chapter 2 will provide a general overview of the land, the culture, and the people, with special emphasis on the changing character of life in the Dominican Republic. Chapters 3 and 4 will describe the historical evolution of the country from the Spanish conquest to contemporary times. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 will be concerned, respectively, with the major social, economic, and political features of the country as well as the interrelationships of social class structure, economic dependency and underdevelopment, and political power. Chapters 8 and 9 will center on the key issues of policy and policymaking in both the domestic and the international arenas, focusing on the Dominican Republic's developmental options and its crucial relations with the United States.

Woven together throughout these chapters are a number of unifying threads and themes. These include an emphasis on the Dominican Republic's strategic and political importance and its position as a pacesetter, a microcosm, a crucible of Latin American social and political change. We shall insist on viewing the Dominican Republic in the light of its own history and cultural traditions, not from the frequently ethnocentric and biased viewpoint of the United States or Western Europe. We shall be concerned both with the nation's internal politics and economics and with its external dependency and interrelations with a broader world. Finally, we shall look sympathetically on the Dominican Republic's efforts to find its own place in the sun, to break out of its vicious circles of underdevelopment, to devise a more democratic political system—albeit democracy derived from its own traditions—to establish its position within a Caribbean region that is turbulent now and certain to become even more so in the near future.

Our study of the Dominican Republic seeks to weave these diverse themes together so the complete profile that is presented captures the distinctiveness of that country as well as its broader importance for understanding Caribbean, Latin American, and Third World contexts. We hope that the picture we draw will help others comprehend, with empathy and understanding, this land of beauty and misery, of richness and poverty, of hope and tragedy, of dreams lost and realized, and of abiding dignity, perseverance, and aspiration.

2
The Land, the People, the Culture

In 1492, when Columbus first sighted what is today the Dominican Republic, he reported to Spain that he had found a land that was "the fairest under the sun." Nestled in the chain of Caribbean islands between Cuba and Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, with its fertile valleys and plateaus, its favorable climate and gentle winds (except during hurricane season), its docile natives and considerable mineral wealth, was the favored early location for the seat of Spanish trade, culture, and administration in the New World. As proof of Columbus's love for the island and its importance in the early Spanish colonial empire, he named it "Española" (later Anglicized to "Hispaniola"), or "Little Spain."

The Land

The island of Hispaniola today is divided into two countries: the Dominican Republic, which is Hispanic, Western, Spanish-speaking, and predominantly white or mulatto; and Haiti, which is French and African culturally (though often with a thin veneer of Westernism), French- or patois-speaking (patois is a native dialect), and predominantly black. The Dominican Republic occupies the eastern two-thirds (19,386 square miles or 48,464 square kilometers) of Hispaniola, stretching from the mountainous regions in the north and west of the island to the eastern coast that looks out toward Puerto Rico. Haiti has about the same population in half as much territory. In history, culture, language, and racial attitudes, the two neighbors on Hispaniola have little in common. Nor, for the most part, have relations between them been friendly. The Dominicans believe the Haitians have an inferior culture and feel that those Haitians who enter the country should perform menial tasks such as cutting sugarcane. Increasingly, the Dominicans' negative perception of Haitians has led to acts of violence and calls for a lessening of Haitian emigration to the Dominican Republic.

The Haitian countryside is barren, impoverished, and largely denuded of vegetation, with most of its topsoil washed away. The Dominican Republic is lush and tropical, with rich vegetation. Travelers to the latter country consistently marvel at both the beauty and diversity of the topographical and climatic conditions. The Dominican countryside is a mixture of mountain ranges, semiarid deserts, rich farmlands, tropical rain forests, and picture-postcard beaches. Geographers who have studied the Dominican Republic call it one of the most diverse countries in the world, with over twenty distinct geographic regions.¹

Dominating the central area of the country are the mountain ranges, or Cordilleras. The Dominican Republic has four parallel mountain ranges running from northwest to southeast, chopping up the country into smaller segments and separating the capital city of Santo Domingo on the southern coast from the rich agricultural heartland in the Vega Real (the "Royal Plain") and from the center of the country's burgeoning tourist trade on the northern coast.

The mountain ranges, although majestic and beautiful, are largely unpopulated and are perhaps less important to the Dominican Republic than the valleys lying between these "fingers" of the cordillera. In the northern part of the country, surrounding the Dominican Republic's second largest city of Santiago, is the Cibão Valley. The Cibão is often referred to as the breadbasket of the country because of its production of grains, beef cattle, and export commodities such as tobacco.

Although the valleys of the northern cordilleras contain rich farming and grazing areas, the valleys in the southwest are semiarid deserts unsuitable to agriculture and with some of the poorest people to be found in the country. At the eastern end of the island, the cordillera gives way to a plain of over 1,000 square miles (2,590 square kilometers), much of it leased by multinational corporations such as Gulf and Western. It is a region of seemingly endless sugarcane fields, yielding the primary export commodity of the country. Surrounding the entire country are some of the loveliest and, until recently, most undeveloped beaches in the world.

The topographical diversity is reflected in considerable climatic diversity. The mountain areas are clear and cool, the plains and valleys warmer and more humid. But in general, the climate is temperate and more pleasant than in other tropical areas. The trade winds, high elevations, and surrounding ocean help keep the average temperature at 75 degrees year round. Rainfall is moderate except on the Samana Peninsula in the northeast part of the island and in the mountain areas around Santiago, where as much as 100 inches (254 centimeters) per year may

Cove in the Samaña Bay region (courtesy of Judy Pinter)

fall, The remainder of the country usually enjoys clear, sunny days with only an occasional afternoon or nighttime shower.

Although generally blessed with favorable temperatures and rainfall, the island has serious climatic problems as well. Hispaniola lies in the "hurricane channel." A killer hurricane devastated the capital in 1930, leaving thousands dead and many more thousands homeless, and served as a way by which Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo justified even stronger authoritarian rule. In 1978, Hurricane David swept through the country killing more thousands and causing over $1 billion in damages— it was a storm from which the country still has not recovered. The Dominicans have also had to endure periodic droughts that have ruined the all-important sugar crop and caused severe water shortages, and they suffer almost yearly flooding, as poor drainage and river control systems have left certain areas constantly susceptible to the effects of excessive rainfall.

Despite the specter of hurricanes, droughts, and floods, climatic and topographical conditions are generally favorable to agriculture, which is still the backbone of the economy, the principal employer, and the chief source of export earnings. The Dominican Republic is one of the world's leading producers of sugar, a crop that shapes not only the nation's economy but also its sociology and politics. Although sugar continues to be a major generator of export earnings, its relative importance is diminishing. In fact, sugar export earnings have dropped 56 percent since 1983 as a result of a decline in world sugar prices and a reduction of about 75 percent in U.S. quotas. Coffee, tobacco, cocoa, bananas, tomatoes, and other fruits are also produced for export, but even these staple crops are facing declines. The Dominican government has sought to diversify traditional staple crops by working with foreign investors to develop nontraditional agricultural crops such as citrus fruits, pineapple, flowers, and winter fruits and vegetables. This change has helped to lessen the decline in the agricultural sector caused by shifts in investment toward other areas such as tourism and the assembly sector. Whereas in the past agriculture was the foundation of the Dominican economy, today it is one of a number of competing sectors.

The heavy dependence of the Dominicans on sugar and other staple crops in a world of unstable prices, however, has stimulated efforts at economic diversification, especially in the areas of mining and manufacturing. In recent years, the Dominican government has permitted foreign mining concerns to search for and extract for export bauxite, nickel, gypsum, gold...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables and Illustrations
• Foreword
• Preface
• List of Acronyms and Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Land, the People, the Culture
• 3 The Pattern of Historical Development
• 4 Contemporary Dominican History
• 5 Social Structure and Social Groups
• 6 The Economy
• 7 Political Institutions and Processes
• 8 Public Policy and Policymaking
• 9 The Dominican Republic in the International Arena
• 10 Conclusion
• Notes
• Suggested Readings
• About the Book and Authors
• Index