Caribbean Government and Politics

Julien

The Caribbean region is known for its rich and diverse cultures in which its early

colonizers such as the French, Dutch, Spanish and the English imposed different identities on

each island. To date however many attempts are being made in order to unify the Caribbean

region into one common market hence the reason why this discourse will direct your attention to

this very important issue of Integration. In this paper, I will firstly assess the approaches to

integration in the region, then consider what have been the main features and benefits of the

regional integration movement, and finally provide an insight of what else needs to be done and

why.

However, before indulging into any argument in this paper, one must first understand the

meaning of integration. The team integration widely used in modern political analysis admits

several meanings. In much of the social science literature, integration seems often to be used as a

normalize goal, rather than a neutral concept (Lewis 1967). Lewis (1967) also noted one may

distinguish between two levels on which the problem of integration is discussed in recent

literature in political science. They are both Regional Integration and National Integration. This

discourse will focus primarily on issue of regional integration. Barrow-Giles 2002 defined

Regional Integration as a response to external and local challenges and can be defined as a

process or a series of actions, whose main aim is to join together independent nations for the

purpose of creating a new national entity. Lewis (1992) noted the approach to integration

adapted was designed to take cognizance of desire of countries to exercise and promote their

newly acquired sovereignty (independence) while due to the force of circumstances,

subordinating aspects of that sovereignty in certain aspects of that sovereignty in certain selected

spheres of activity.

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Barrow-Giles (2002) also noted historically, the integration movement in the common

wealth Caribbean has involved both regional and sub-regional approaches with an emphasis on

economic integration. She also noted they were Military, social and political dimensions to the

movements. The idea of regional integration has existed in the Caribbean for a considerable

period of time. Since the seventeenth century, attempts at uniting territories of the region to

rationalize administrative costs of running the colonies occupied the thinking of the British

Government Barrow-Giles (2002).

With this being the case, I will now explore the approaches to Caribbean Integration.

Firstly, I will focus on the pre-eras of the West-Indies federation of 1958. In the pre-eras of the

West-Indies Federation, there were a number of factors that led to the ideology of the federation

such as; The Great Depression; Caribbean leaders and economic and social crisis. Mordecai

(1968) noted that Caribbean leaders such as T.A Marryshow and Andrew Cipriani were two of

the earliest and foremost advocates of federation with their ultimate goal of achieving

constitutional self-government. However, one should understand that these two advocates did not

start the idea of federation. The Great Depression was a contributing factor that gave birth to the

ideology of federation because of the sharp decline in sugar prices and employment while pay

wages also decreased. As Barrow-Giles (2002) mentioned, the economic and social crisis was

another factor that contributed to the idea of forming a federation because there was a concern

over the cost of political administration.

The development of The West Indies Federation involved many phases. In the year 1953,

an agreement for the commencement of the Federation occurred at a conference held in London.

Despite this, it was not until 1956 a decision was made to start the federation and finally on

January 3rd 1958, a final decision was made to proceed with the federation. The West Indies

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Federation lasted only four years because of the withdrawal of Jamaica, and later followed by

Trinidad after the commencement of their independence. As the late prime Minister of Trinidad

and Tobago, Sir Eric Williams self-indulgent arithmetic that “1” from “10” left “0” the agony of

eight that ended the dream (Ramphal 2011). There are several reasons for the failure the West

Indies Federation. Firstly, the imperishable impulse for “local control” had received, and the

separatist instincts of controlling social and political elite had prevailed (Ramphal 2011).

Modecai (1968) also noted that there were conflict of interest between leaders such as Norman

Manley of Jamaica, Sir Grantley Adams of Barbados and Sir Eric Williams of Trinidad and

Tobago. Springer (1962) also gave another interesting viewpoint in which he saw as an

underlying factor which contributed tremendously to the failure of the federation. He stated that

the islands were more integrated with Britain than among themselves.

After the failure of the West Indies Federation in the year 1962, a few of the more

developed countries in the region (Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago) gained independence.

Emmanuel (1987) noted that it is now well known that on the failure of the federation, Jamaica

and Trinidad and Tobago proceeded to separate independence while Barbados and the Windward

and Leeward islands undertook a set of negotiations inevitably involving the United Kingdom, in

a renewed effort to forge a smaller but potentially more coherent union of the little eight. This

attempt to unite these unions proved unrewarding because Barbados received its independence in

November of the year 1966. It was in the latter half the 1960’s that an emphasis on structures and

process of Caribbean integration moved from the constitutional to the economic and functional

level.

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This failure then led to another approach of integration that is known to us as CARIFTA.

Emmanuel (1987) noted the birth of CARIFTA was witnessed in the year 1967 to 1968 in which

it embraced all members of the federation and Guyana. The Caribbean Free Trade Association is

known to be pioneered by the Sir Eric Williams. Demas (1962) noted that the late Dr. Eric

Williams, the then Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago took the initiative to call a meeting in

1963 of the Heads of Government of Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Jamaica to

exchange views on economic, political and other matters of common concerns to the other

countries. However, decisions were made by the four Heads of Government to include Heads of

Government of Bahamas, Belize, Leeward and Windward in the meetings. One must understand

that an important landmark was the signature at the Dickenson Bay in Antigua of the agreements

establishing the Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA) by the late President Forbes

Burnham the then Premier of Guyana; the late Prime Minister Errol Barrows, the Premier of

Barbados and Prime Minister; the Rt Hon. Vere Bird, the chief minister of Antigua Demas

(1962). The Caribbean Free Trade Association (CARIFTA), however was to be implemented by

the Heads of Government in a meeting held in Barbados in the year 1967 on the basis of

participation of all countries that was originally signed in 1965 by Guyana, Barbados and

Antigua to establish the Caribbean Development Bank Demas (1962). CARIFTA was not fully

developed until the early 1970’s when all the countries (Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados,

Guyana, and Trinidad and Tobago on 15 December 1965, on 1 July, 1968 by Dominica,

Grenada, St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, Saint Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines; and on 1

August, 1968 by Montserrat and Jamaica) then came together for the intended purpose of uniting

their economies and to give them a joint presence on the international scene (CARICOM 2011).

CARIFTA was formed specifically with the intended purpose to encourage balanced

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development of the region by: increasing trade, diversifying trade, liberalizing trade by removing

tariffs and quotas on goods produced and traded within the area and finally ensuring fair

competition by putting measures in place where by all members should fallow to protect the

smaller enterprise (CARICOM 2011).

As we have seen, approximately five years after the demise of the 1958 to 1962 West

Indies Federation, the Heads Of Government of all the countries in the federation as well as

Guyana came together to establish organization for economic and functional cooperation of both

regional and sub-regional levels. The Caribbean Free Trade Association was reestablished the

Caribbean Community (CARICOM). The Caribbean Community, signed under the Treaty of

Chaguaramas on the 4th of July 1973 five years after the inception of CARIFTA was developed

in order to further deeper the form of economic integration and functional cooperation, involving

as well the coordination of the foreign policies of the member states (Demas 1987). In this

discussion thus far, there were efforts of integration but idea of functional and economic

cooperation seemed to be the underlying goal as in the Treaty of Chaguaramas. The Treaty basic

provisions were geared to economic cooperation in production and trade functional policy

(Emmanuel 1987).

The Treaty of Chaguaramas was an important factor because it called for the formation of

free trade. Despite all this, CARICOM remains plagued by the number of quantitative and

qualitative restrictions hence the reason why the Grand Anse Declaration of 1989 was used to

address the problems that arose in free trade phenomenon (Barrow-Giles 2002). As noted by

CARICOM (2011), the Caribbean Community Single Market and Economy (CSME) intended

purpose is to benefit the people of the region. Important elements of CSME includes: free

movement of goods and service, rights of establishment, a common external tariff, free

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circulation, free movement of capital, a common trade policy, and finally free movement of labor

that includes abstracts to intra-regional movement of skills, labor, land travel CARICOM (2011).

Before proceeding, what is now known as the Organization of the Eastern Caribbean

Market entered the wider regional grouping of CARIFTA on July 1981 because there was an

attempt to a common market. The Organization of the Eastern Caribbean State on the other hand

was established as a sub-regional level. Under the treaty of Basseterre, in the year 1981, the

OECS was established with the intent to further steepen efforts in the area of economic

integration and functional cooperating; as Demas stated that was previously pursued by the

Eastern Caribbean Common Market (ECCM) and the West Indies States Council of Ministries

(WISA).He also noted that since the establishment of the Organization of the Eastern Caribbean

State in 1981 has so far been quite successful, particularly in the area of functional cooperation.

As we have noticed, they were many attempts of regional integration in the Caribbean

region with the motive to achieve administrative efficiency and later economic viability so as to

facilitate constitutional independence. Hence former members of the then Federation discovered

it was possible to achieve economic viability and consequently independence without a political

union, regionalism was eschewed for insular national development (Boxill 1993).

There was acknowledgment that regional integration would lead to development, and

with that realization the integration movement, though it has faltered, has been a persistent

feature of the economic, political and social backdrop of the region for a significant number of

years. The underlying principle behind the quest of regional integration as a developmental path

was the fright that less developed islands could not carry on on their own because of the high

costs associated with providing all the functions of government. This was also compounded by

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the fear that these islands will not be able to face the challenge of competitiveness that

globalization will bring. For these reasons, the focus of regional integration has been on

functional cooperation with an emphasis on the economic features. This would be pursued in

two ways. Firstly, through the economies of scale afforded by harmonization on common

external service and secondly, through the establishment of common infrastructure that would

transcend national interests. The aim was to foster deeper integration among member states

while at the same time ensure the widening of the movement regionally and internationally. This

has included pursuing a monetary union in the OECS, joint missions overseas and a free trade

area (Soomer 2003).

Hence the question still remains, what else needs to be done and why towards regional

integration? It is clear that individual Caribbean Community countries and even more is the

individual member states of the Organization of the Eastern Caribbean State (OECS) suffer from

the absence of the critical mass and of economies of scale in many areas. According to Demas

(1987) the size of individual national market for goods, services, and capital is very limited; the

unit cost of public administration, social services and economic infrastructure are high because

of the very small population served; scientific and technological research, particularly in relation

to agriculture and industry, is also constrained by high cost and a very limited number of trained

research personnel and insufficiently large members of skilled workers, entrepreneurs and

business managers exists. Therefore regional integration will benefit the region in many areas

such as: pooling of technical expertise, cost sharing of regional projects and joint development of

financial and capital markets (Sommer 2003). Barrow-Giles (2002) also mentioned that regional

integration is first and foremost a political act it requires the political will to facilitate the

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implementation of regional decisions at a national level in order to strengthen capacities for

international negotiations, or the enhancement of bargaining capacity.

To conclude, despite all the failures and continued approach to uniting the Caribbean to a

single unit, the Caribbean leaders courageously wrestled with the challenges facing the region

and never relented or allowed themselves to be deflected by temporary failures or intractability

of the problems which they faced. From the period of the 1958 Federation through the

vicissitudes of the 1980’s and now the latest era of globalization attempts are still being made in

order to achieve the goal of regional integration (Hall 2003). Boxill (1993) noted that the major

reason for this is that, historically the pursuit of regional integration as a process has been simply

as a means to an end but never as an end in itself.

The Caribbean remains fragmented both economically and politically as a result of

competition and conflict among the European Powers. Fragmentation is in part the product a

long history as separate colonies of a metropolitan power. It is also in part the psychological

effects on people of separation by sea. The case of regional integration is both simple and

irrefutable. First of all, we are a small group and there is a necessity to achieve economies of

scale. We need to achieve such economies in markets, production, the mobilization of regional

capital for regional use, university education, science and technology, sea and air transport to

mention these areas. As Boxill (1993) noted that a closer integration of the region into a single

unit would have resulted in less inequality and a greater distribution of national revenues

between people by virtue of a distributive policy. To end, I must say that Caribbean integration is

weak and unstable because it is not based upon nor is it guided by an ideology or regionalism. As

the former Prime Minister of Jamaica Michael Manley stated, “meticulously researched and well

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argued. I happen to happen to agree one hundred percent with (the) basic contention…. that it is

the absence of an ideology of regionalism which explains the weakness of integration.

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Reference:

Barrow-Giles, C. (2002). Introduction to Caribbean Government Politics. Jamaica: Ian Randle

Boxill, I. (1993). Ideology and Caribbean Integration. Canada: Ian O. Boxill.

Commission, W. I. (1992). Time for action:the report of the West Indian Commission. Barbados:
Black Rock Christ Church.

Duncan, N. (1989). Public Finance and Fiscal Issues in Barbados and the OECS. Cave-Hill
Barbados: Neville Duncan.

Emmanuel, P. A. (1987). Approaches to Caribbean Poltical Integration. Occasional Paper

G.Demas, W. (1987). Seize the Time:Towards OECS Political Union . St.Michael Barbados.

Hall, K. O. (2003). Integrate or Perish. Jamaica: Ian Randle Publisher.

Millett, J. (1970). The Genesis of Crown Colony Government in Trinidad . Port of Spain: Moko
Enterprise.

Mordecai, J. (1968). The West Indies:The Federal Negotiations. London: Allen and Unwin

Secretariat, C. (n.d.). The Caribbean Community. Retrieved April 19, 2011, from Caribbean
Community: http://www.caricom.org/index.jsp

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Springer, H. (1962). Reflections on the Failure of the West Indies Federation. Occassional paper
No.4. Boston:Harvard Center for International Affairs: Harvard University.

Sybil Lewis, T. G. (1966). Papers on Socia, Political and Economic Integration. Guyana:
Institute of Caribbean Studies.

Submitted by Dr. June Soomer, Adviser, Strategic Policy and Planning Department,
ECCB, as part of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union’s Financial Literacy Month
Programme Oct. 2003 - “Building Strong Economies Depends on You and Me”

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