Basketball, Civil Society and the Post Colonial State in the Commonwealth Caribbean

Abstract

In this paper the autonomous voluntary organizations of basketball leagues in ten countries of the Commonwealth Caribbean are examined. An index reflecting the strength of basketball organization, play and popular support in each country was constructed and and a framework to account for these differences was employed. The authors suggest that the significance of basketball organization lies in the fact that voluntary associations are poorly developed in the region. West Indian scholars have tied the stunted development of a civil society in the region to the historically rooted overly centralized political structures characteristic of Caribbean states. The weakness of civil society has restricted the democratic content of West Indian societies, despite the presence of formal democratic institutions. Finally, the implications of the existence and differential strength of basketball associations for the development of civil society and participatory democracy in the Anglophone Caribbean are explored.