Amy Vreeland

PSCI 4783

November 7, 2005

 

Small States: the Caribbean and Central America

 

CARIBBEAN INTEGRATION (Grenade & Hinds):

  1. Background
    1. 1958-1962: First integration started by British to decrease impacts of decolonialization
    2. 1968: Caribbean Free Trade Area (CARIFTA)
    3. 1973: Caribbean Community (CARICOM): for economic integration through a common market, functional cooperation, and foreign policy cooperation
    4. Allowed for greater influence in international arena; increased collective bargaining power
    5. Because of Cold War and 1970s economic crisis: ideological conflict and economic declineà decreases emphasis on regionalization because domestic economic concerns are priority.
    6. Since 1980s: minimal intra-regional trade
    7. Legacies of colonialism: monoculture economies, similar production across the Caribbean, economic dependency on colonial states. 
    8. Institutions: Intra-governmental decision making; community of sovereign states
    9. There are many councils and a CARICOM Secretariat, however national government are still the primary decision making body. 
  2. Why regionalize:
    1. “Smallness is powerlessness”
    2. Risk of economic marginalization with expansion of global economy.
    3. Increases bargaining power and economic development. 
    4. Non-traditional security threats: illicit drug trade, HIV/AIDS.
  3. Problems:
    1. Tension between need to create greater integration within the framework of a community of sovereign states.  Lacking the political, legal, and institutional mechanisms to make deeper integration possible.  (Grenade)
    2. “An indigenous path to development through regional integration” (Grenade)
    3. Grenade: Focus on the regional institutional problems: such as the democratic deficit in CARICOM decision making; a powerful representative parliament needed and not instituted.
    4. Hinds: Domestic politics key to understanding regional integration

1)      Refusal of states to pool sovereignty or is it a refusal to surrender power?”

2)      “Westminster winner-take-all system”: polarized political parties “along racial and tribal lines”: authoritarian politicians not representative of the general people: focus on short-term partisan political power rather than long-term development goals like integration

3)      Integration proposals are tied to domestic partisan politics (ie. Caribbean Court of Justice becomes a “political football” and fails to gain widespread support. 

4)      Internal Integration needed before regional integration can occur: shared values, belief in national government before support for regional governance.

5)      Opposition parties need to be included in regional agreement; joint delegations.

    1. Hind’s Solution: “Move in the direction of power sharing based on shared democratic governance to compliment the evolving power sharing at the regional level.”

 

 

 

CENTRAL AMERICAN INTEGRATION (Sanchez):

  1. Background:
    1. Prior to 1990s: integrationist tradition in the region based primarily around security concerns during Cold War era. 
    2. Esquipulas peace process (1986-1990) “Re-launch of regionalism”: move towards greater political and ideological cohesion in post-Cold War era, allowed for increased political and economic cooperation
    3. Reform of Central American Common Market (CACM) and establishment of System of Central American Integration (SICA) in 1991
    4. Neo-liberal reforms; increased convergence of economies of region. Coordination of macroeconomic policies through PAECA (Central American Economic Action Plan) in 1990à extraordinary recovery in intra-regional trade (integration is successful).
    5. ‘Official integration’: neo-liberal regionalism focused on trade, foreign investment, and external integration; lacks social dimension some states wanted
    6. Institutionally structured to ensure governments’ control of integration: Inter-governmental
    7. Efforts to “deepen” integration: prevented by changes in domestic leadership, domestic agendas, bureaucratic competition, border conflicts
  2. Why reinstitute regionalism:
    1. Not for “regional cohesiveness or community building” but “integration into world economy”
    2. Fear of economic marginalization from world economy.  Regionalization as a method of reforming domestic economies to prepare for world economy
    3.  “Two aims of new regionalism:” 1) preferential access to external markets (esp. US and EU), attract FDI, new technologies and reconstruction aid. 2) Increase the comparative advantage of the region
    4.  ‘Reactive regionalism’: because these are small and peripheral states cannot regionalize strategically, lack structural power and reciprocity (Response to Nafta)
    5. “Sub-optimal size of states in terms of territory, population, financial and natural resources.”
  3. Problems:
    1. Varying degrees of development and democracy within states: from strong to weak economies and democratic systems (ie. Costa Rica: most democratic and most developed of Central America, unsure if its advantageous to regionalize—does not support deepening of integration)
    2. Unwilling to transfer sovereignty to regional institutions
    3. Shifting government preferences; domestic politics
    4. Disagreement on the degree of integration that is necessary 
    5. External integration undermines regional integration with bilateral/multilateral trade agreements (Cafta?)
    6.  Variable geometry: different speeds and different levels of commitment of regionalization

Small States in the broader context of overall theories and trends of integration:

-          Regionalization is a reaction to fears of economic marginalization in the global economy

-          Regionalization as step towards globalization

-          The link between domestic politics and successful regional integration: Internal integration as a prerequisite for regional integration.

Discussion Questions:

-          How important is the legacy of colonialism in determining the success of regionalism in the Caribbean?  For example, politically, in terms of retaining sovereignty and power and/ or economically with the endurance of monocrop and dependent production?

-          Is regionalization a good step towards globalization for small states?

-          What would a Central American or Caribbean “indigenous path” towards regional integration look like?