Rethinking United States-Caribbean Relations: Towards a New Mode of Trans-Territorial
Governance
Author(s): Anthony Payne
Source: Review of International Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jan., 2000), pp. 69-82
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20097656 .
Accessed: 28/01/2015 15:28
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
.
Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Review of
International Studies.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Review
of International
Studies
(2000),
26, 69-82
Copyright
? British
International
Studies
Association
United
States-Caribbean
relations:
Rethinking
towards a new mode of trans-territorial
governance
ANTHONY
PAYNE*
Introduction
States-Caribbean
relations over the period of the last thirty or forty years
United
have rarely?if
in a thoroughly
ever?been
analysed
satisfying way. It is a strange
in the international
omission
relations literature given the proximity of the United
States to the Caribbean,
and vice versa. But the fact is that most accounts of the
have
fallen
prey to a powerful, but ultimately misleading,
relationship
mythology
by
which small, poor, weak, dependent
entities in the Caribbean
have either created
trouble for, or alternatively been confronted by, the 'colossus to the north' that is the
in whose
have to reside. Virtually
all
'backyard' they unfortunately
a
the
US-Caribbean
have
thus
at
drawn
marked
analysts
relationship
picture
heart by the notion of an inherently unequal struggle between forces of a different
order and scale. Within
this broad metaphor
the only major difference of interpret
ation has reflected the competing
theories of power in the international
system
United
States
of
developed by the realist and structuralist schools.
From the realist perspective, which has always dominated US-based
analyses of
the relationship,
the most immediate and noteworthy
feature is the huge disparity in
on the other.
power resources between the US on the one hand, and the Caribbean
in the Caribbean
terms as the
(which is generally defined here in conventional
in
islands located
the Caribbean
Sea, plus Belize and the three 'Guianas' which have
to the islands in so many ways) are obviously
been linked historically
small in a
senses.
of
Their
in
is
limited
size:
and
Suriname are the
variety
territory
Guyana
kilometres
and
kilometres
square
163,270 square
largest (at 214,970
respectively),
but substantial parts of their land-areas are uninhabited
and unexploited.
Of the
States
is the largest (114,524
but the norm is much
islands, Cuba
square kilometres),
states are no more than 300-600 square kilometres
smaller. Many eastern Caribbean
in size, the smallest independent
state in the region, St Kitts-Nevis,
being only 269
area.
are
in
kilometres
Their
also
square
populations
equally
tiny by global
standards. Cuba is again the most populous, with over 10 million people, followed
and Haiti with about 7.0 million
and 6.3 million
by the Dominican
Republic
come St Kitts-Nevis
respectively. At the other end of the spectrum
(46,500),
Dominica
the gross
(81,100) and Antigua-Barbuda
(81,20o).1 As a consequence,
*
The
author
acknowledges
the support
of Economic
and Social Research
Council
Award
no.
R000222040.
1
Payne and Paul
Anthony
Johns Hopkins
University
Caribbean,
pp. 294-5.
Sutton
Press,
(eds.), Modern
Caribbean
Statistical
1993), Appendix:
Politics
Data
and London:
The
(Baltimore
on the Countries
of the
69
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
70
Anthony
Payne
states are bounded. Taking
1978, more or less at
products of Caribbean
as the basis for comparison,
the range ran from Cuba
(US$15,400m),
the
Dominican
Trinidad
and
(US$5,700m),
Republic
Tobago
(US$3,896m)
through
and Jamaica (US$2,729m),
down to St Vincent
(US$47m), Dominica
(US$36.9m)
states in the
These are, even so, not the poorest
and St Kitts-Nevis
(US$35.2m).2
in per capita terms. But what is
ismeasured
world, especially if economic well-being
is that, by comparison
with the US (which measures
manifest
9,372,614
square
domestic
random,
in the late 1980s of some 244.4 million people,
in area, had a population
in the world),3
the
largest gross domestic
product
long possessed
they
resources
to
most
with
which
their interests
in
the
minimal
pursue
possess
international politics.
states have not been able to wield much power
All of this means
that Caribbean
as traditionally
at
in the international
least
understood.
From the realist
system,
kilometres
and has
the formal sovereignty
of the sixteen fully independent
perspective,
one
resources.
is
of
their
few
Thanks to the centrality of
power
region
of
the
international
the post-1945
system, even the
organization
states in the world,
such as those in the Caribbean,
have
weakest
as
a
can
use.
vote
for
them
in
It
has
worked
both
weapon
they
states in the
the concept in
smallest and
been given a
international
as
a
in
in defence of
international
debates.
The
and
argument
symbol
organizations
can
one
states
be
has
become
with
which
offending
sovereignty
brought to the bar of
some
to
In
and
restrained.
this
it is
international
connection,
degree
opinion,
as
states
states
to
in
the
that
all
Caribbean
have
survived
the
least,
say
significant,
era
to
their
the
US
and
their
World
War
emergence
despite
proximity
post-Second
into statehood during some of the mostly highly charged phases of the Cold War.
remains something deceptive about their situation, even
so, there unavoidably
in realist terms, which is that the benefit which can be derived from the legitimizing
than real. In the Caribbean
context,
appeal of sovereignty may be more apparent
in October
1983. No amount
this is well illustrated by the US invasion of Grenada
in international
law?and
the action was
of appeals to the shrine of sovereignty
an
vote of
in the United Nations General Assembly
condemned
by
overwhelming
or block the wider political
108 to nine?could
effect the removal of the marines
Even
its power over the Caribbean. Washington
of the US in reasserting
simply
to play the new post-colonial
game of respecting the sovereign rights of the
weak, and got away with it.4
From the structuralist
which has equally predictably
perspective,
shaped most
on
the
with
the
US
and the rest
Caribbean-based
commentary
region's relationship
status in
of the world, the key organizing notion has been the Caribbean's peripheral
a world capitalist
controlled
after 1945 by the US. As the considerable
economy
purpose
refused
of the Caribbean
school attests,
the development
of the
dependency
into a system not of its
economy has been conditioned
by its integration
of
and not to its advantage. All such analysts have stressed the dependence
making
the Caribbean people on the rest of the world: for markets and supplies, transfers of
literature
region's
2
All gross domestic
product figures are taken from International
DC: IMF, 1982).
Financial
Statistics
(Washington,
3
World
Bank, World Development
Report 1989 (Oxford: Oxford
1989).
4
For a discussion
of
Grenada: Revolution
see Anthony
the invasion of Grenada,
and Invasion (London: Croom Helm,
Monetary
University
Payne,
1984).
Paul
International
Fund,
Press
Sutton
for the World
Bank,
and Tony Thorndike,
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Rethinking
United States-Caribbean
relations
71
income and capital, banking and financial services, business and technical skills, and
'even for ideas about themselves'.5 Clearly, multinational
capital has flowed in and
states have long vied with each other
out of the region with few restraints. Regional
to offer the more attractive package of incentives to external investors in a competi
tion to embrace what was once tellingly, and scathingly, referred to as 'industrializa
terms on which each state has sought to make
tion by invitation'.6 The particular
as it has been
with dependency',
its peace with
the capitalist
system?'living
naturally varied, but all have in the end succumbed, with the single
of Cuba. Whatever
may have been the debate about the
important
exception
on the Soviet Union with which revolutionary
'socialist dependency'
Cuba had to
a different
live from the early 1960s until relatively recently,8 it was unquestionably
described7?have
in respect of the rest of
from that to which structuralists have pointed
relationship
the Caribbean.
The political dimension
of this system has generally been seen to have been a
on
the part of the US to 'defend' it against all forms of 'attack' from
willingness
radical and socialist politics in whatever form they emerged. The instances of such a
response in the Caribbean have been many and varied over the modern period: Cuba
1959 onwards,
the Dominican
1972-80
and Grenada
1965, Jamaica
Republic
1979-83 are only the most notorious.
The techniques of intervention have ranged
from 'destabilization',
economic
and other threats to undermine
the
involving
of allegedly subversive governments,
via the attempted
legitimacy and effectiveness
to outright invasion if all else fails and the
assassination
of key political opponents,
arises. In all cases, local allies and regional supporters were required.
opportunity
the way that the Caribbean's
Nevertheless,
part in such a process of neocolonial
is described
has to be carefully modulated.
The region has never
management
contained many key US economic
that a simple economic
interests, which means
determinism
has always been too crude a conceptual basis on which to explain the
assertion
of US power over the Caribbean.
For the best part of the post-1945
period, the region's significance was, as Sutton has argued, primarily
'political?as
he wrote,
'because of what it
proof of American
power'. The Caribbean mattered,
... a belief that if the
represents to the people of the USA and to the outside world
USA cannot deal effectively with events in its own sphere of influence itwill not deal
from this perspective,
effectively with events elsewhere'.9 President Ronald Reagan,
was quite right to decry those who denigrated
to
the importance
he attached
Grenada
because
its best-known
'It is not nutmeg
that is at
export was nutmeg.
stake down there,' he declared
in March
States' national
1983, 'it is the United
5
Alister
in the West
'Some Issues of Trade Policy
Girvan
and Owen
Indies', in Norman
Mclntyre,
in the Political Economy
Jefferson
Institute for Social and
(eds.), Readings
of the Caribbean
(Kingston:
Economic
of the West
Research,
Indies, 1967), p. 165.
University
6
Norman
Girvan
and Owen Jefferson,
in Girvan
in the
and Jefferson
'Introduction',
(eds.), Readings
Political Economy
p. 2.
of the Caribbean,
7
in the Commonwealth
Paul Sutton,
in Anthony
Caribbean',
'Living with Dependency
Payne and Paul
Sutton
The Political Economy
under Challenge:
Caribbean
(eds.), Dependency
of the Commonwealth
and New York: Manchester
Press, 1984), p. 281.
(Manchester
University
8
See Robert A. Packenham,
since 1959: What Kind of Dependency?',
'Cuba and the USSR
in Irving
L. Horowitz
6th edn. (New Brunswick
and Oxford: Transaction
(ed.), Cuban Communism,
Books,
1988), pp. 109-39.
9
as a Focus for Strategic and Resource
Paul Sutton,
'The Caribbean
in Peter Calvert
Rivalry',
(ed.),
The Central
University
American
Press,
Security System:
1988), pp. 39^0.
North-South
or East- West?
(Cambridge:
Cambridge
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
72
Payne
Anthony
security'.10
terms,
was
As
this example
truly
shows,
national
security,
understood
in structuralist
all-encompassing.
accounts of US-Caribbean
conventional
relations in the postwar era have
had their value. The best of them have illuminated
undoubtedly
important aspects
embrace which geography and history have imposed
of the uneasy but unavoidable
on both the US and the Caribbean.
That said, realism and structuralism
in their
most uncompromising
terms have never been totally convincing
in their attempts to
These
catch all the nuances of the modern
inherent emphasis on the capacities
US-Caribbean
relationship. The former, with its
of states as actors in international
relations, has
to assess the 'foreign policy' options
in principle
enabled analysts
open to the
various contending governments,
only to snatch them away again almost instantly by
insisting on the tremendous disparities of power at work in the contest. The latter,
structures of
itself in an identification
of the underlying
grounding
by necessarily
a similar inevitabilism?the
to rule, the Caribbean
US destined
power, generated
to dependence.
It is also the case, very importantly,
that neither theoretical
can
new
to
be
well
into
the
milieu
said
travel
created
by the collapse of the
approach
Bretton Woods
system, the end of the Cold War and the many other significant
world
changes which have lately taken place in the nature of the contemporary
destined
order.
this was fully recognised by
one
of the best?accounts
tionably
between
the US and the Caribbean,
in power' between the US
asymmetry
but
he 'does not assume that
analysis,
of the most recent?and
unques
the complex
and changing
relationship
He explicitly makes
'the
Anthony Maingot.
and the Caribbean
the 'central point' of his
this ipsofacto means
total control'; rather, 'the
... to be
or
or
of
direct
indirect
coercion
undue
influence
has
degree
empirically
In Maingot's
to
the
best
describe
the
is to
established'.11
view,
way
relationship
sense
term
in
of it as one of 'complex
the
of
conceive
that
interdependence'
in
the societies
and Joseph Nye.12 In other words,
by Robert Keohane
pioneered
are
been
connected
and
have
transnational
historically
through multiple
question
in the agenda of relations; and
there has been no consistent
relations;
hierarchy
as a policy option to the extent that
in importance
force at least declines
military
More
grows.
complex interdependence
generally, such an approach enables Maingot
to see that Caribbean
states and societies do have options,
that influences between
run in both directions,
that the US is a most complex
the US and the Caribbean
democracy and, not least, that the US is itself now yielding to new cultural pressures
All
of
deriving
None
the author
of
from the Caribbean.
of this can be denied.
offers are consider
Indeed, the insights that Maingot
able. The danger is that, in his hands, the search for synergies in the US-Caribbean
(which he admits to being one of the aims of the book) leads to him at
relationship
times taking too generous a view of the nature of this interdependence.
Revealingly,
... of interests' shared by US and Caribbean
at one point he talks of 'a coincidence
the capacity of both public and
leaders.13 At best, this causes him to underplay
10
of Manufacturers,
Association
cited in Caribbean
Contact,
speech to the National
1983, p. 3.
April
11
P. Maingot,
The United States and the Caribbean
(London: Macmillan,
1994), p. 3.
Anthony
12
and Joseph S. Nye
Robert O. Keohane
(eds.), Power and Interdependence
(Boston, MA: Little, Brown,
1977), pp. 33-7.
13
The United States and the Caribbean,
p. 3. My emphasis.
Maingot,
President
Reagan's
Bridgetown,
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Rethinking
United States-Caribbean
73
relations
a sense of the possible,
private forces within the US to create within the Caribbean
of what is thinkable and doable, which substantially
reflects US interests; at worst, it
disguises, even obscures, important elements of conflict in the relationship which the
did highlight.
realist and structuralist
approaches
the
limitations
of
the
accurately recognises
existing literature, but
to transcend these problems on a pluralist international
relations
in the end too narrow to carry the full weight of the enquiry.
The remainder of this article seeks to continue the rethinking
It aims to build an analytical
relations
started by Maingot.
conventional
In short, Maingot
builds his attempt
discourse which is
of US-Caribbean
framework which
in its intellectual
incorporates his insights, but is at the same time more wide-ranging
reach and thus ultimately more
robust in its explanatory
power. To this end, it
the
elements
of
what
has
been
called
'new
lately
deploys
political economy'. As set
out more generally in a founding statement, the central feature of such an approach
is that it rejects 'the old dichotomy
between agency and structure' and recognises
the need to 'develop an integrated analysis, by combining
parsimonious
in terms of a conception
of rationality
theories which
with
agency
analyse
In
and
contextual
theories which analyse structures
institutionally
historically'.14
means
context
in
the
of
this
this
practice
particular
enquiry,
working
eclectically
with arguments drawn, on the one hand, from international political economy and,
on the other, from comparative
in
public policy analysis. The resulting framework
instead
effect
seeks
to embed
inside structural (or
concepts
(or political)
agency-oriented
these
levels of analysis, is
concepts and, precisely by integrating
political economy)
come
a
to
to
the
able
better
of
for action open to
possibilities
perhaps
understanding
actors in any given structural situation. Arguably,
both state and non-state
it has
more
to offer to the study of contemporary
US-Caribbean
relations than either
classical realism, or structuralism, or even Maingot's more subtly pluralist approach.
The next, and main, section of the article endeavours
therefore to relate the insights
new
to the reality of these relations in the 1990s. It builds
of the
political economy
its argument in five stages.
US-Caribbean
US hegemony
relations
in the 1990s
and the Caribbean
a perspective,
the point of entry into discussion
of contemporary
relations has to be the wider question of US hegemony. The concept
of hegemony
litera
has been much debated in the international political economy
ture but it is best theorized in neo-Gramscian
terms as 'dominance of a particular
From
such
US-Caribbean
on a broad
state creates an order based ideologically
kind where
the dominant
measure
to
of consent, functioning
in
that
fact ensure
according
general principles
or
state
states
the continuing
of
the
and
social
classes but
supremacy
leading
leading
or prospect
at the same time offer some measure
to the less
of satisfaction
14
Andrew Gamble,
Payne, Ankie Hoogvelt,
Anthony
New Political Economy,
New Political Economy',
Michael
and Michael
Kenny
1:1 (1996), pp. 5-6.
Dietrich,
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
'Editorial:
74
Anthony
Payne
powerful'.15 Thus, again to cite Robert Cox, 'there can be dominance without hege
is only one possible form dominance may take'.16 Crucially,
in this
mony; hegemony
seen
as
is
both
coercive
and
definition
consensual
bringing
together
hegemony
to main
of power, which is what gives it that greater richness compared
dimensions
resources.
stream accounts which emphasise only the preponderance
of material
As regards the United
States, this conceptualization
implies that over the course
to
In brief, Pax
has
of the postwar period
domination'.17
way
'hegemony
given
Americana was established
after 1945; ran with growing confidence
until the late
1960s and early 1970s; was broken by the economic and political crisis of Vietnam;
even though the effort was made; and
could not be fully reconstituted
by Reagan,
a new non-hegemonic
thereafter has visibly faded in both reach and strength. Within
remains preponderant?certainly
order, the power of the US unquestionably
too in the
in the military
the
demise
of
the
Soviet
Union,
sphere given
substantially
new
domain
its
of
old
and
organs of
continuing
leadership
ideological
given
such as the IMF and the Group of Seven (G7), and also,
international mangement
not least, to a considerable
degree still in economic matters. The size and techno
of
the
US
the origins of much
international
economy,
logical vigour
capitalist
in
the
the
US
and
of
the
US
dollar as an inter
continuing
centrality
enterprise
national currency are all factors which continue to make the US the most formidable
is different
is that the US is no longer
single player in the global economy. What
world
order. It
powerful enough to shape on its own the rules of a consensual hegemonic
it has not even sought
has not been willing or able to initiate a new Bretton Woods;
to use the G7 process
to shape the economic
consistently
policies of the leading
it did succeed in putting together a powerful coalition
Western
states; and although
to fight the Gulf War in 1991 it also drew upon German,
Japanese and Arab funds
to pay for its military
effort. In short, the US no longer possesses
that self
and largely unchallenged
constituent
reinforcing
primacy across all the necessary
elements of hegemonic
status,
this, it has been reduced to mortal
power. Without
same
to
in
in the same way
the
fashion and be constrained
behave
increasingly likely
as other leading states in the world.
to understand
turn towards
in this way,
it is easy enough
the US
Viewed
its
with
Latin
America
and
and
the Caribbean
regionalism
energetic re-engagement
from the end of the 1980s onwards. Like every other state, the US also had to make
a response to the ending of its global hegemony. What
is that under both
is obvious
seen
as a part of the
and
Bush and Clinton
the US has
Latin America
the Caribbean
a
than its main economic
world where it has
rivals
greater natural trading advantage
to
and it has thus envisaged freer hemispheric
trade as working
a
the merits of
flexible political frame
its particular benefit. It has also recognised
work (the so-called 'Miami process' initiated by the Summit of the Americas
held in
that city in December
1994) within which it can manage other hemispheric
problems.
in Europe
and Asia
In short, the US strategy has not been to create a closed regional bloc (as some have
in a way consistent with and supportive
but rather to organise the Americas
feared),
15
Power and World Order: Social Forces
in theMaking
Robert Cox, Production,
of World History
York: Columbia
Press, 1987), p. 7.
University
16
Robert Cox,
'Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond
International
Relations
Theory',
Millennium:
Journal of International
10:2 (1981), p. 153.
Studies,
17
Power and World Order, p. 299.
Cox, Production,
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
(New
Rethinking
United States-Caribbean
75
relations
world order.18 It has also been the case
of US interests in a post-hegemonic
the US has necessarily
this new vision of its interests within the hemisphere
concern itself increasingly with those parts of Latin America
geographically
to itself, another important shift of perception
from the Cold War era.
The Caribbean
has not been a high priority in this process?Mexico
has
that in
to
had
closest
always
the key?but
it has been embraced by the various initiatives and been forced to
as a whole.
react, in one way or another, to the new US agenda for the hemisphere
more
it
has
been
than
other
affected
any
Indeed,
part of the
profoundly
arguably
a
to preserve
to
has
had
market
Brazil
domestic
be
able
big enough
hemisphere.
Chile
has
been a
elements
of its old import-substitution
model;
development
been
on the US
trader not to have to rely predominantly
on
a
to
to
of
be
resistant
US
initiatives
market;
range
proved
and political agenda of the various small
narcotics. By comparison,
the economic
states of the Caribbean
has been steadily reshaped over the course of the last two
decades to the point where the US is now able to lay down the parameters
of what
can be done in almost every policy arena. Leaders of states located just off the
successful
enough
Colombia
international
has
shore of the US that seek to pursue export-oriented
economic development
to
have
little
realistic
choice
but
do
what
is
necessary to secure access to the
policies
US market
and US
investment flows.19 The conditionalities
imposed reach well
of
macroeconomic
into
the
the
broad
outlines
detail of tax law,
beyond
policy right
investment codes, tariff arrangements,
intellectual property rights legislation and so
southern
on. They have even extended
to maritime
so-called
and overflight arrangements?the
in
to
to
stem
the
US
1996
the
intra
try
by
early
'shiprider' agreements?proposed
regional flow of narcotics.
it cannot really be said that the US has put in place
As a consequence,
although
an alternative regional hegemony over the whole of the Americas,
the special type of
coercive and consensual
identified as hegemony
power
by Cox does still aptly
characterize
its relationship with the territories of the Caribbean. The one remaining
exception to this generalization,
namely Cuba, in fact proves the point, because what
to do, with an ever decreasing
it is now grappling
likelihood of success, is to stay
the embrace of US hegemonic
power over the whole of the Caribbean. Due
over the region is thus the
existence of US hegemony
recognition of the continuing
to the analysis of contemporary
first essential building block of a new approach
US-Caribbean
relations.
outside
The US policy
apparatus
The United
States has always had a domestic
for a hegemonic
of
power. The commitment
constitution
with
ample
checks
and balances
policy apparatus
singularly unsuited
the Founding
Fathers to a balanced
was not designed to facilitate decisive
18
For a fuller discussion
of this strategy, see Anthony
'The United
States and its Enterprise
for
Payne,
the Americas',
in Andrew Gamble
and Anthony
and World Order (London:
Payne (eds.), Regionalism
Macmillan,
1996), pp. 93-129.
19
see Carmen Diana Deere,
et al., In the Shadows
For a discussion
of alternatives,
of the Sun:
Alternatives
and US Policy
Caribbean Development
Press for Policy
(Boulder, CO: Westview
for the Caribbean
Alternatives
and Central America,
1990).
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
76
Anthony
Payne
the bulk of the era of Pax Americana
this did not matter
global leadership. During
too much because the ideological pressure of Cold War served to generate the neces
sary national will to drive the policy process in a coherent direction. Yet, when the
state is dissected
in a detached way outside
of the US
the peculiar
machinery
environment
of Cold War, there is revealed an extraordinarily
complex and essen
tially weak state structure.20 In any analysis of US state strategy
to the power of
consider the relationship of US state policymakers
assess
to
transnational
the
role
of
various
domestic
and
capital,
to
in
mind
all
the
time
the
balance
of
bear
between
power
groups,
to
it is necessary
national and
US
foreign pressure
the legislative, the
executive and the judiciary and between the different parts of the federal system, to
claims to represent
the US of the White
bureaucratic
weigh up the competing
the
the
the
the Federal
the
State
House,
CIA,
Pentagon,
Department,
Treasury,
so
on.
one
In
Enforcement
and
has
the
sum,
Reserve,
Drugs
Agency
quickly to move
on and away from the easy notion of there ever being a single US state strategy
and
towards anywhere or anything and grapple instead with the many contradictions
In
exist.
this
the
marvel
is
variables?the
sense,
many messy policies?that
actually
in any discernible direction at all and, of
indeed that the US policy apparatus moves
as a means
the notion
of 'gridlock' has entered common
of
course,
parlance
core
at
the
of
the
the
that
is
US
state.21
entropy
increasingly
expressing
are meat and drink to that part of the
to say, these sorts of observations
on
field
which
focuses
the
United
States.22 But they are still too
comparative politics
relations field which focuses on US
often neglected by that part of the international
to appreciate
Even
which
the so-called
purport
'foreign policy'.
approaches
on
to
of
fail
take
board
the
full signi
'domestic sources'
foreign policy frequently
Needless
ficance of the plural character of the US state/society
complex and its attendant
structures. For, just as with so-called domestic
institutional
issues, what tends to
a
series of different policy
emerge in relations with all parts of the world is whole
communities?related
to
trade,
or
debt,
or
particular
commodities,
or
narcotics,
or
or the environment?which
do not easily connect one with the
arms, or migration,
other and which in fact often conflict with each other over resources and priorities.
are difficult to lead in any single direction by
That these diverse policy communities
even a charismatic or popular president almost goes without
saying; when no serious
to achieve coherence
the scope for confusion
and sustained attempt is even made
the greater. The latter is what has lately applied to
is consequently
and contradiction
of policies
towards the Caribbean,
the making
thereby bringing about a situation
for example,
the policies
of trade competitiveness
pursued by the Trade
of
Office imperil the future
the Caribbean
banana industry in ways
Representative's
is charged with
of Defense
which
the
that alarm
the Department
policing
for the US of increased Caribbean
consequences
drugs production.23 Appreciation
of the complexity, diffusion and endemic incoherence of the US policy apparatus
is,
where,
20
of the historical
of the US state, see S. Skowronek,
For an interesting discussion
emergence
Building
State (Cambridge:
New American
Press, 1982).
Cambridge
University
21
and American
Journal of International
See Philip G. Cerny,
'Political Entropy
Decline', Millennium:
18: 1 (1989), pp. 47-63.
Studies,
22
in Gillian
the various chapters
J. Bailey, Bruce Cain and B. Guy
Peele, Christopher
See, for example,
in American Politics
Peters (eds.), Developments
(London: Macmillan,
1994).
23
For an early discussion
of the politics
that attach to these contradictions
of policy, see Anthony
Third World Quarterly,
'The New Politics of "Caribbean America"',
19: 2 (1998), pp. 205-18.
Payne,
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
a
Rethinking
then, the second essential
US-Caribbean
relations.
Caribbean
actors within
building
block
United States-Caribbean
of our new approach
relations
11
to the analysis
of
the US
two core features
These
lead on to three other secondary
characteristics
of the
current modalities
of US-Caribbean
relations. The first of these draws attention
to
to
the considerable opportunities
actors
Caribbean
to
based
within
the
US
presented
a
in
the
of
US
towards
their
'home'
The
play
major part
making
policies
region.
involvement
democracy
at heart 'domestic'.
the Cuban
is not only legitimized by the general ethics of American
by the treatment of 'foreign' policy issues as if they are
classic case of the exercise of such influence is the role of
as the Cuban
in Miami.
such organizations
Through
of such groups
but is facilitated
The
community
enormous
in that city have brought
anti-Castro
Cubans
Foundation,
on
to
US
to
bear
successive
administrations
maintain
hardline
pressure
policies on
the Cuban embargo, even after the ending of the Cold War. They have also always
found ready allies in the US Congress and can point to the passage of specific pieces
of legislation, such as the 'Cuban Liberty and Democracy
Act' (popularly known as
as
in
outcome
March
the
direct
of these Congressional
1996,
Helms-Burton)
passed
American
links. By comparison,
other more reformist Miami-based
Cuban bodies have found
it an uphill struggle to get any part of the US state machine
to listen to the case for
a shift of policy in a less hostile direction. In effect, US policy towards Cuba for the
past several years has been no more than a product of the outcome of this domestic
battle for influence between different groups of exiled Cubans
living in the US. In
such a highly charged context
rational arguments made within,
say, the State
about the irrelevance, indeed counterproductiveness,
of the continued
Department
embargo have had little, if any, political purchase.24
The influence of Cuban Americans
still exceptional. As indicated,
is, nevertheless,
they shape US policy towards Cuba itself, but they do not yet seek to carry that
influence over into policies
towards other parts of the region or regional issues in
For
moment
the
the
in US foreign policy
of Cuba
is a
general.
unique position
Nor do other groups of Caribbean
sufficient preoccupation.
Americans
involve
or as effectively
themselves as energetically
in the making
of US policies
towards
are
their home country in the region as do the Cubans.
Indeed, many nationalities
still notably disorganized
and ineffective
in this respect; some also suffer from
debilitating
public images, such as the Jamaicans who are widely and undiscrimi
in the US as 'criminals', courtesy of the bad publicity attracted by the
viewed
nately
criminal activities of the gangs of Jamaican
or the Haitians who were often condemned
of the US military
in Haiti
in
intervention
able to learn to operate a democracy. For all
24
posses living in cities like New York,25
in popular debate in the US at the time
1994 as somehow
too 'primitive' to be
these problems,
Cuban Americans
Most
have
relations have not emphasised
this domestic
analyses of US-Cuban
previously
published
aspect,
to treat them in orthodox
terms. See, as illustration,
state-to-state
and
preferring
Jorge I. Dom?nguez
in the 1990s (Boulder, CO: Westview
Rafael Hern?ndez
Relations
Press, 1989).
(eds.), US-Cuban
25
see Ivelaw L. Griffith, Drugs and Security
For a discussion
of the posses,
in the Caribbean:
under Siege (Pennsylvania:
State University
Press, 1997), pp. 123-8.
Sovereignty
Pennsylvania
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
78
Anthony
Payne
to influence US policy
that there are opportunities
shown the way and demonstrated
from inside the US in accordance with different visions of
towards the Caribbean
state and society in question. Given the
what is in the best interests of the Caribbean
can only grow in
structures
US
such interventions
of
the
of
openness
government,
number
and significance
US actors
in the future.
'for' the Caribbean
of contemporary
US-Caribbean
is the
relations
secondary characteristic
This sounds para
role being played by US actors on behalf of the Caribbean.
doxical, but it serves to highlight the impact being made within US Caribbean policy
by such official sub-state actors as the state of Florida. Of course, Florida has been
but on several
acting in its own interests, rather than those of the Caribbean,
to the same thing. Although
US
occasions
and issues they have lately amounted
Another
Basin,
(defined here as the Caribbean
thereby
as well as Colombia
and Venezuela)
only
including the countries of Central America
amounts
to about 2 per cent of total US foreign trade, Florida's
leading trade
are those countries
to a study by
in the Caribbean
Basin. According
partners
counts
its top ten
Florida
three Basin countries
and Hiskey,
among
Rosenberg
export markets, with the Dominican
Republic
ranking third in the dollar value of
In 1992 Florida's
exports to Caribbean
exports
leaving the US through Florida.
basin countries
totalled close to US$ 4bn, creating an estimated 80,000 jobs in the
state. A lot of so-called 'twin plant' activity also links the state to its nearest external
foreign
trade with
the Caribbean
links
region.26 In short, Florida and its inhabitants benefit from healthy economic
in
with Caribbean
Basin countries and have received as great a boost as anywhere
the Basin from the consequences
of the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) introduced
in the early 1980s as a means
of forging closer trading and
by President Reagan
investment links betwen the US and the Caribbean Basin and thereby stemming the
the
apparent tide of radical political change flowing through the region. However,
to shift
Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) promised
signing of the North American
and away from the Basin countries and so
US trade and investment towards Mexico
imperilled not only the prospects of the Caribbean Basin but also those of Florida.
of Florida can
The emergence of a more active political stance by representatives
as the key US
be traced directly back to this threat to its position
'gateway to the
economic
the source of so much of its extraordinary
Caribbean',
growth since the
in nature and has been
and unstructured
1970s. The effort has been disparate
the
at different times via the state's Senators and House
mediated
representatives,
state governor and his executive agencies and various government/business
partner
of the Americas. Never
ships like Enterprise Florida and the Florida Partnership
theless, by these diverse means and agents 'Florida' as a political actor has taken a
for the CBI countries,
lead in putting
the case for some kind of NAFTA-parity
to host President
in
the
lobbied
of
bills
the
successfully
Congress;
including
tabling
in 1994; and has continued
thereafter to play a
Clinton's
Summit of the Americas
26
See Mark
Century:
Dialogue
in the 21st
Basin Countries
and Jonathan T. Hiskey, Florida and the Caribbean
B. Rosenberg
International
Is Geography Destiny?,
Florida Caribbean
Institute, Florida
University,
no. 137, November
1992.
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Rethinking
United States-Caribbean
relations
79
of the future likely shape of the Free Trade Area of the
leading role in discussions
to
in principle by the heads of state at that Summit.27 Its
Americas
(FTAA) agreed
no guiding principles have ever been enunciated by an
and
is
business-driven
agenda
to these various
official organ of the state to give meaning
initiatives. But, as
a
recent
in
of involvement
in
kind
observed
this
commentary,
Rosenberg
magazine
the 'Miami process' has 'empowered the state's leaders to declare boldly that Florida
ismore, there will be
is one of the few states in the US with a foreign policy'.28 What
no retreat from such developments:
Florida's
'foreign policy'
even more significant factor in the making
of US Caribbean
few years than it has already begun to be during the 1990s.
The foreign
policies
of Caribbean
is likely to become an
policies over the next
states
as part of the process of contemporary
US
The last feature to be highlighted
in
Caribbean
is perhaps
cited
relations
that most
commonly
existing accounts,
states of the
namely, the foreign policies towards the US adopted by the independent
Caribbean
themselves. But, if the new modalities
of the relationship have worked, as
we have said, to privilege both Caribbean
actors in the US and US actors 'for' the
so
have
also
disenfranchised
and rendered less relevant
Caribbean,
they
substantially
the traditional
tools of state-to-state
At the very
foreign policymaking.
new
must
to
most
the
of
the
be
said
the
least,
pose
system
dynamics
forbidding
to the foreign policy apparatuses
states. In any case, these
of Caribbean
challenge
small and under-resourced,
often having been the last
are, almost without
exception,
to be established
in the final stages before the
part of the indigenous bureaucracy
many
of
states appoint their ambassadors
Caribbean
granting of independence. Nevertheless,
to Washington,
seek meetings
between their foreign ministers
and whatever
level of
and cherish the few
political appointee they are offered within the State Department,
moments
It
that they are occasionally
able to win in the diaries of US presidents.
was thus presented as something of a achievement
in the region when, inMay
1997,
Clinton came to Barbados
for a summit meeting with the heads of government
(or
states that lasted for all of a morning
their senior representatives)
of 15 Caribbean
session and a working
lunch. As it happens,
this meeting was not without
its gains
for the Caribbean.29 Nevertheless,
the overall record of the 1990s shows that, in the
of Cold War
this manner
of conventional
has not
incentives,
diplomacy
in giving the Caribbean
the kind of high profile in US foreign policy
succeeded
circles that it needs and thinks that, as a near neighbour,
it deserves.
This argument
can, however, be put the other way round. What
independent
states have not generally done is to seek fully to insert themselves into the
Caribbean
various US-based
through which, as we saw earlier, US policies
policy communities
absence
towards
the region are now mostly made. Mexican
and private-sector
government
did this with breathtaking
skill and energy in the long run-up to the
representatives
27
See Summit of the Americas
Inc. and Florida Partnership
of the
Center, Enterprise
Florida,
Trade Negotiations
Inc., Florida and the FTAA: A Position Paper for Hemispheric
Americas,
(Miami:
Florida
International
March
1998).
University,
28
Mark B. Rosenberg,
'Florida's Foreign Policy', Florida Trend (February
29
See again Payne,
'The New Politics of "Caribbean America"
'.
1996), p. 14.
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
80
Anthony
Payne
and eventual passage through Congress
of NAFTA.30
Admittedly,
they
negotiation
states and they
had more resources at their disposal
than most
small Caribbean
benefited from the substantial presence of Mexican-Americans
living in US society,
but they did at least understand
that their best chance of shaping US policy in the
direction
they favoured was to work within, not from outside, the US governmental
to
reluctance
system. This suggests that at least part of the Caribbean's
as much as a lack of
the same way stems from a failure of understanding
The leaders of the English-speaking
states, in particular, have grown up
and lack an
amidst an Anglophone
tradition of centralized government
operate in
resources.
politically
instinctive
even
feel for the very different,
US
This
has been
anarchic,
system.
dispersed,
Lewis, the former secretary
recognised. As long ago as the late 1980s, Vaughan
of Eastern Caribbean
states, noted that the small states
general of the Organization
he represented were unable 'to come to terms, for example, with the intricacies of the
American
Congress?so
increasingly
influential
in the decision-making
of
the US
government'.31
In some ways, very little has changed in the intervening years. Many Caribbean
states still pursue singularly ineffective policies towards the US, often giving priority
to traditional
in their tiny diplomatic
to places
establishments
such as
postings
London. Yet some states have been learning and have started to reap their rewards in
terms of gaining access and getting a hearing inWashington.
The best example of
this is Jamaica. In his second period in office, from 1989 onwards, Michael Manley
to secure his government
determined
against the fierce hostility from the US which
in the 1970s. One of his most
had so damaged his administration
important acts
towards this end was to appoint a non-career diplomat, Richard Bernai, to become
to the US. Bernai was in fact an economist with a left-wing
Jamaican ambassador
and he was ideally placed to
but he was both able and hard-working
background,
the threat to the Caribbean
understand
represented by the post-Cold War economic
in Washington
in a
the
Americas.
Bernai operated
of
the
US
towards
agenda
different way from previous Caribbean
ambassadors. He went out of his way to get
to know key US officials, gave public evidence to Congressional
committees, wrote
at
and attended and gave presentations
articles and oped, pieces for US newspapers,
academic and other conferences where new policy initiatives were being discussed.32
It is true that he was also given a considerable
freedom of manoeuvre
by Manley
successor as Jamaican prime minister, P. J. Patterson. The consequence
and Manley's
and respected
in all policy circles in
has been not only that Bernai is well-known
for
where
the
Caribbean
the chair of the
crops up (he is,
Washington
example,
in
FTAA
the
but
that
'smaller economies'
Jamaica has
group
working
process),
more
and
with
influence
the
US
than
other
any
standing
acquired
comparable
Caribbean
30
country
of its size.
'The Neoliberal
Alliance
in the Passage
of NAFTA,
Ph.D.
Presland,
thesis,
unpublished
of Sheffield,
1997.
31
1:3 (1988), p. 162.
'Closer Political Union',
Caribbean
Lewis,
Vaughan
Affairs,
32
'The Implications
of the NAFTA
for Jamaica
See, amongst many possible
Bernai,
examples, Richard
statement by the Ambassador
of Jamaica before the House
and the CBI Region: A Policy Proposal',
on Trade North American
of Representatives
and Means
Subcommittee
Free Trade Hearing,
Ways
See Susanne
University
22 September
to Hemispheric
Free
'From NAFTA
DC, mimeo,
1992; Richard
Bernai,
Washington
to the
29: 3 (1994), pp. 22-31; and Richard
Journal of World Business,
Bernai, Paths
Trade', Columbia
Free Trade Area of the Americas,
8: 2, Center for Strategic and
Policy Papers on the Americas
1997.
International
Studies, Washington
DC, January
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Rethinking
United States-Caribbean
relations
81
This is not to say, of course, that Jamaica has been able to wield a lot of influence
a measure
inWashington,
of success?to
that it has tried?with
utilize the
merely
actors
full range of opportunities
that are open to Caribbean
to take
governmental
as
in
the
other
Caribbean
US
Some
such
the
Dominican
states,
game.
part
policy
have sought to follow suit by also choosing non-career diplomats
for the
Republic,
US posting and, of course, this sort of lobbying activity need not be confined to the
as well as
It can be pursued by Caribbean bureaucrats
in all ministries,
ambassador.
elites concerned
that their interests will also be directly affected by
by private-sector
in
the
US.
The nature of the US policy apparatus
decisions
taken
is such
political
case in the US, the more it will be
that the more people that seek to put a Caribbean
heard.
Conclusion:
towards a new mode
of trans-territorial
governance
It is time now to construct
these various observations
into a conclusion.
The first
to
made
remains
the
Caribbean
is
still
central:
US
The
point
subject
hegemony.
here
derives
from
international
neo-Gramscian
and
argument
economy
political
draws attention to the mixture of coercive and consensual
forms of control by which
the US seeks to manage
the region. Viewed from the other end of the relationship,
the Caribbean has become so entangled within common patterns of trade, financial
that one can genuinely
and narcotics movements
talk of the
flows, migration
context
of a new structural
economies
of the
emergence
linking the political
in
and the US, albeit
fashion. (I have elsewhere
Caribbean
asymmetrical
profoundly
described
this as 'Caribbean America'33).
At any rate, the point
is that US
Caribbean
relations take place within a particular
structural setting which has to be
as framing all subsequent analysis. However,
understood
the second point made then
becomes
relevant: the sheer complexity,
the diffusion
and the relative openness
of
the US policy apparatus mean
that the manner
of US hegemonic
is not
control
imperial in the traditional sense. The argument here derives from comparative public
and demonstrates
in the
that, for all of its impact, US power
policy analysis
Caribbean
is not exercised in a style that can accurately be called authoritarian,
in
in different policy communities
large part because US policies are openly debated
and can be influenced from inside and outside. The third, fourth and fifth points
made continue in this vein and serve to illustrate some of the ways in which this has
been done by actors representing
either the exiled Caribbean,
the gateway to the
Caribbean or the official Caribbean.
I suggest that what has, in fact,
These various arguments are not contradictory.
been identified in this article is nothing
in the 1990s of a
less than the emergence
new type of trans-territorial political connection between the US and the Caribbean,
on the one hand, by the sheer extent of US hegemonic
power over the
of the institutions of the
and, on the other, by the residual penetrability
US state to different forms of Caribbean
influence. Put differently, the US can either
be said to have developed an 'outreach' capacity to manage
the 'offshore' economies
generated,
Caribbean
33
Anthony
Studies,
'The New Political
Payne,
27:2 (1998), pp. 253-73.
Economy
of Area
Studies',
Millennium:
Journal
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
of International
82
Anthony
Payne
and/or to have gone a long way towards domesti
societies of the Caribbean
located off its immediate
systems of the countries
cating the social and political
southern border. Both metaphors
highlight how much has changed, for it is surely
US-Caribbean
relations
clear that what is now encapsulated within contemporary
as mere
cannot any longer be conceived
international
relations. The symbolic
rhetoric and behaviour of the state-to-state world still goes on, and is certainly not
US-Caribbean
yet irrelevant, but it does not catch the essence of the contemporary
and
transnational
relationship. This has now been reconfigured as a series of interlocking
and Nye's
lan
and transgovernmental
(here using Keohane
policy communities
the US state/society
complex and within
guage) in which different actors within
various Caribbean
(here using Cox's language) engage each
state/society
complexes
other in different policy arenas where there are no automatic priorities.
on
to me that in international
studies we now have to move
This suggests
to place at the centre of our enquiries the notion of governance. This
analytically
term has its specialist literature in the public policy field, but it has been introduced
to international
He uses the term to
studies with great effect by Jim Rosenau.
... at all levels of human
. . . that amount to
refer to 'spheres of authority
activity
systems of rule in which goals are pursued through the exercise of control'.34 Others
and Reich have lately argued in a
have begun to pick up the term and, as Higgott
studies', more attention needs to be directed towards the
'globalization
and localization
of
processes,
regionalization
globalization,
public policy aspect
on
in
'the
of
the wider
inter
their
words,
subsidiarity within
politics
focusing,
to
to
of
This
article
has
contribute
national political
sought
theory
governance'.35
evidence from one part of the
this emerging debate by bringing forward appropriate
world. As has been shown, an embryonic
system of rule has come into being by
sense to
it makes
interface is now governed
and which
the US-Caribbean
which
survey of
It is obviously
of trans-territorial
think of as a new mode
governance.
of
behaviour
still
and
by Caribbean
requires major adjustments
complete
are
to
of
it.
if
take
due
But, notwithstanding
advantage
they
particular)
to be any return to the old patterns
there is now unlikely
qualifications,
in this part of the world and that is both a shift of
national
relations
in its politics and a sign perhaps of a broader
significance
of interstate linkages in the current era.
modalities
34
shift
far from
actors (in
those
of inter
immense
in the dominant
Frontier: Exploring
in a Turbulent World
Governance
the Domestic-Foreign
Along
Press, 1997), p. 145.
University
Cambridge
(Cambridge:
35
and
and Sites of Conflict: Towards Definition
Richard Higgott
and Simon Reich, Globalisation
and R?gionalisation
Centre for the Study of Globalisation
Working
Paper no. 1,
Taxonomy,
of Warwick,
1998, p. 19.
February
University
James N. Rosenau,
This content downloaded from 146.96.128.36 on Wed, 28 Jan 2015 15:28:32 PM
All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions