Crisis and Promise in the Caribbean

Politics and Convergence

Winston Dookeran

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138571938
• eBook ISBN: 9781317157748
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Political Economy
• Index: Economics

The Caribbean is made up of a complex, enigmatic region, characterised by great disparities in size, population, geography, history, language, religion, race and politics. This is a region in which harmony and discord work in tandem, trying to link economic logic with political logic. This book is a useful tool not only for those specialists and students of regionalism but for all those putting their hands to the task of nation-building and those interested in the development processes of small states and economies. At the same time, this book is a comprehensive historical record especially highlighting hindrances to development in this region. This study raises two important issues: the 'political imperative of convergence' and the need for 'appropriate correcting mechanisms' that align the needs of the local with the regional. It is a volume that underlines the need for a change in strategy and makes proposals as to how to go about making those changes.

PART I
New Politics: A Democratic Society

Chapter 1
The Old Politics: The Failure of Fragmented Politics

The Choice-less Democracy¹

Political leaders and media power persons enjoy enormous power, including the power to withhold information from the public and to distort information. This is the biggest obstacle we face, and this obstacle becomes even more pronounced when leadership in a country at all levels – church, business, labour, civil society and intellectual – become hostile to changing the structure of power that keep us where we are in a choice-less democracy. Such a leadership operates on the principle of enlightened self-interest, not in the interest of the public good.

A global revolution is sweeping our planet and in the process is creating a new frontier world in which a new social, economic, and political order is emerging. What ultimate direction, content, form, and outcome this revolution will take is yet to be shaped. The path to the future is yet to be constructed. Critical decisions by governments and national leadership are yet to be made.

What is clear, while the old order still holds the balance of power and controls the corridors of politics, it now is threatened and declining on its hold on the community of national interests and citizens. The new social, economic, and political order is gaining strength and is just emerging as a new political force.

This paradigm shifting information driven global revolution creates a crisis for all governments, authoritarian or democratic alike. This worldwide revolution, while it is global in its dimensions, has profound local economic, social, and political consequences; and in turn local events have global significance. This describes what we mean by glocalization, there are no boundaries between local and global. Information flows at the speed of light, and is accessible nearly everywhere and at any time and to enough people – individual customers and citizens – to cause deeply unsettling expectations and demands.

There are two aspects which can explain the current global political revolution and accompanying governance crises. On the one hand, it is the rising expectation of citizens, created and spread by the globalization of the economic markets. These powerful expectations encompass the demand for quality public goods and services from their government and political parties in power.

The other is a consequence of the power of the worldwide information communication network demand for democratic institutions that allow citizen participation and input into decision-making affecting the life of citizens. In applying the economic theory of supply and demand, successful political change would depend on the demand and supply of good governance.

Another of the unattended consequences of the global information-communication network is that this distributive information technology also shifts political power. Information is power; in the past, especial information stamped secret by governments is and was the source of state or government power. The global ICT network allows accessibility and transparency of information by citizens; and consequently is destroying the power based on secret information and knowledge and is shifting the power to the people. This shifting of the information paradigm, giving information power to the people, is a major contributor to global political revolution.

What this means is that if a society does not demand good governance, there will certainly not be a supply of good governance. It will take courage to work together and get our politics right. But this is indeed a time for bold decisions as the gatekeepers of our politics fade into the past; it is a time when our courage for change will be tested. It is now the time to have a choice in this otherwise “choice-less democracy.”

A democracy with choice means equity for all, a safe place to play and work, a future that is confident and secure, where there is real promise for the young among us and a belief that we can do it. Resources must be utilized carefully to avoid corruption and wastage in order to actually improve the well-being of all citizens. Quality of life must reflect affordable food for families, shelter for all in need, security for all, employment that does not trap our people and health, education and justice dispensed with an equal hand to all our citizens.

We are still on the journey from a colonial democracy² to a choice-less democracy to a genuine independence and a democracy with genuine direct citizen participation. Every democracy should give citizens numerous opportunities to provide input for constitutional reform and participate in decision-making and there must be no losers in our path to national development.

Our choices will determine the values of our leadership, the accountability of our government and the path our country takes for a better quality of life for us and for our children. We cannot ignore the pain of our mothers losing their children to violence, the tears of our sons and daughters in need of good health care, the lost hope of our pensioners and our farmers for a decent life.

Competitive elections and holding leaders to account – is this the missing link in our political system? Are our politicians able to behave in the way because of this missing link? Is this missing link the reason why some have described us as a “choice-less democracy?” There are two competing groups in our polity. Votes are not easily transferable which leads to the lack of “electoral competitiveness” in our political system. Citizens have one instrument to influence the thousands of decisions that governments make on their behalf – the vote. Our national challenge is to improve the effectiveness of the vote – otherwise we will only have to settle for a “choice-less democracy” where office holders are not held accountable. The pivot for making our electoral system more competitive is through the creation of a “new media.”

The cry for more democratic involvement by citizens in the institutions of government will not go away but rather increase. The demand for personal and political freedom will increase and those in political power must prepare for an accommodation and transition to the sharing of power.

The global political revolution, resting on a global technological platform(s), using the highways of information, is shifting the political and social power from the traditional centres of political power to the periphery where the citizens as political customers demand the sharing of power. The end-user is demanding to be served. Consequently, the current global crisis in governance is as much about citizens’ rising expectation and demand for political participation in their governance, as it is about the inability of traditional political leaderships to share power. The traditional power centres in the form of the state and political parties in power lack the capacity to supply good governance, they have insufficient democratic infrastructure. They cannot support the participatory demands of the citizens.

A new democracy should therefore involve the people in the major decisions that affect their lives and the way our country’s resources are managed and distributed; the alternative is certain dictatorship in which people have diminishing freedom, restricted voice and choice, and no right to protest. Fear, not only of crime and corruption, but also of losing choice and freedom is once again on the rise. The warnings of the past have not been heeded and the old politics of divisiveness becomes dominant once more.³

Ethnic-based Politics

Trinidad and Tobago, a culturally rich and diverse nation, inherited the Westminster system – an old, fragmented, system of governance based on political parties. More precisely, it is based on the winning political party predominantly serving its constituencies. This tends to stretch societal divisions even further, at times escalating into extreme ethnic conflicts. In an already politically fragile and fragmented society, a genuine political party based on ideologies with a philosophical foundation does not exist. What does exist, are political organizations representing ethnic and tribe-like groups where the party serves its ethnic base to retain power.

Still the victims of a “colonial democracy” citizens are fighting for an identity and the right to shape their future – democratic values of a society still absent from the workings of political institutions. And while freedom means the right to choose, and it is by voting that people exercise their citizenship, the question remains: how do you put country first when the natural constituent of the ethnic-based party in power is an ethnic-based electorate? Within an already embedded culture of “distrust” and “conflict”⁴ normative of the Westminster model of democracy the divisions are accentuated and exacerbated by the manner in which politicians entrench a winner-take-all system where large sections of communities, not aligned to the ruling party, are disempowered and relegated to second class status.

Idea-based vs. Ethnic-based Politics

Where a mature, idea-based political party exists, neither the party organization, nor the leader becomes as important as citizen participation and delivering citizens’ expectations. If an idea-based party assumed leadership, and if the party is founded on thinking that promotes a genuine national well-being which is inclusive of the aspirations of all citizens; the government will reflect a noble, national purpose. The advantage of an idea-based party is that it attracts its followers, not on the strength of its political organization, or its leader, but rather on the issues and solutions it proposes within a grounded and solid philosophy of governance. The fundamental issue here, then, is that the real strength of a political party can be measured by the importance of the political leadership or the political leader. Leaders are transient; they will come and go, but the idea-based party and its ideology lives on.

However, if the political norms and behaviours of the two alternating groups are the same, then no real change occurs after an election other than the political symbolism. Is it that we are “voting without choosing” as Claude Ake (1993)⁵ has articulated in his discussions about democracy and development in Africa or is that we have “choice-less democracy” in the words of Thandika Mkandawire (1999)⁶ writing on development and democratization in Africa? Democracy therefore should be seen as a value, as seen by Amartya Sen (1999),⁷ and as a function for empowerment and responsible governance.

Politics is about group dynamics. If citizens truly ascribe to the value-based politics, they can then influence and encourage others to become a part of the group. Through mutual reinforcement of norms, the group can confidently agree to reject the “old politics” (and the structures which support it) of divisiveness and corruption which stymies development. Although there is an increasing chorus of persons, both inside and outside political parties, who are demanding responsible governance, there remains a lack of a clear understanding of the policy prescriptions and political actions required to achieve this.

Political Consciousness in a Mature Democracy: Political Freedom and Political Parties

Consequently, in all nations, the new informed and information connected citizen is demanding direct participation. The one-party only of the authoritarian state and the traditional-two party dominance of the democratic regimes no longer seem to adequately serve the increasingly complex and diverse national interests and communities in a society. Many citizens “feel left out,” having little or no voice representing their interests. The old political mindset of a dominant two party political system – imposed from the top – is that the winner gets all the state’s power and the loser gets to play opposition without power.

Political consciousness requires both freedom of choice and capability of its citizens to exercise this choice in the political process resulting in the formation of a government by a political party or by a coalition of parties. Political freedom, the freedom to choose and to exercise that choice to participate in electoral and governmental processes is a critical ingredient in a mature democracy.

Free and fair elections are a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition for a democratic government. The latter requires a political and constitutional mechanism for continuous citizen involvement in the governance process. Furthermore, the leader and leadership of the elected party is both historically and constitutionally obligated to share both the power of government and the benefits derived from being in government with all citizens. The necessary political and governmental infrastructure assures continuous access to those elected.

In a democratic society no one is above the law – the law of the country. In a society governed by a mature democracy it is assumed that the country is always first, the party and the leaders of the party are second; loyalty to the country supersedes loyalty to the party and to any one leader or to any social, ethnic or religious grouping.

Cultivating Harmony and Respect for Diversity

With no “ideological foundation” to guide the government there is no genuine national purpose, no genuine uniting and binding vision and no real direction for the future. The very integrity of our governance system is at stake; the country is at risk of undermining its democratic institutions. The focus on the development of human capital is a critical component of the nation building process. Education and training are crucial to social cohesion, the deepening of the democratic way of life, social and economic equity for every citizen and the development of responsible, caring, competent and productive citizens.

Education and Culture

Liberation through education is the best platform to challenge the workings of a failed political system.

Unfortunately the education system is itself failing our young people, many of whom are dropping out of mainstream society and entering into illegal activity. Education policy should allow for the effective delivery of education for living a priority in the nation building process. Lamentably, government has not adequately dedicated resources to develop physical infrastructure and institutional capacity to deliver the appropriate levels and quality of education. Recognizing the theory of multiple intelligences it is evident that children deserve an education based on their unique abilities. It is the responsibility of the state to take steps towards revamping the education system so that it is more relevant to the needs of a society.

The position of our teachers needs to be enhanced, civic, moral and spiritual values must be adopted and pr...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART I New Politics: A Democratic Society
• PART II Inclusive Development: Sustainable Growth
• PART III Caribbean Convergence: Integration without Borders
• Bibliography
• Index