Introduction: revisiting Westminster in the Caribbean

Abstract

Scholarship on the Westminster model in the Caribbean conducted in the late 1980s and 1990s focused primarily on the formal dimensions of democracy and drew mainly positive conclusions about the model's effectiveness in producing stable democratic states in the region. Since then, however, the Caribbean has undergone radical changes which bring into question the more optimistic assessments of some of the early scholarship. This collection revisits debates about the history, legacies and contemporary implications of the Westminster model of governance in the Caribbean, covering the period from the last decades of British colonial rule to calls for political reform in the present day. The contributors consider how the Westminster political model has been adapted to the conditions of the Caribbean, its impact on Caribbean democracy, and the challenges the model has faced over the period of independence.Between 1962 and 1983, the majority of Britain's Caribbean colonies gained independence, achieved through a gradualist and largely consensual process of constitutional decolonisation. Far from marking a clean break with the colonial past, independence consolidated political institutions and norms based on Britain's Westminster model of government.' [this] implanting of colonial ways of thinking into native elites was one of the outstanding successes of British policy in the Caribbean. It was key to the entrenchment of Westminster government in the soon-to-be-independent states.'Scholarship on the Westminster model in the Caribbean conducted in the late 1980s and 1990s focused primarily on the formal dimensions of democracy and drew mainly positive conclusions about the model's effectiveness in producing stable democratic states in the region (Domínguez, 1993;Payne, 1993;Huber, 1993;Sutton, 1999). Since then, however, the Caribbean has undergone radical changes which bring into question the more optimistic assessments of these earlier works. As some scholars in the region have argued, globalisation, the transnational drugs trade, rising crime levels, debt, economic and environmental vulnerability all pose significant threats to Caribbean sovereignty and the power of the state (Ryan, 2001;Girvan, 2011); indeed, some contend that liberal democracy, which the Westminster model was assumed to produce, is in terminal decline.In the light of current debates about the nature, quality and resilience of democracy in the post-independence Caribbean, it is timely to return to the question of the Westminster model and its application in the region. This collection revisits debates about the history, legacies, and contemporary implications of the Westminster model of governance in the Caribbean, covering the period from the last decades of British colonial rule to calls for political reform in the present day. The contributors consider how the Westminster model has been adapted to the conditions of the Caribbean, its impact on Caribbean democracy, and the challenges the model has faced over the period of independence. These papers...

Food system and social reproduction realities for women in agriculture across the Caribbean: Evidence from Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines

“…A constant refrain, issued from numerous participants across all three research sites regarding extension services, was, ‘We don't get business advice, training, and support needed from the government’. Rather than taking these assertions on the part of the participants as the discrete lamentations of individuals, we are of the standpoint, as are other critical scholars (Girvan, 2015; Quinn, 2015), that their respective words illustrate the hierarchical (Westminster‐modelled) state's inability to serve its constituents and provide civilians with the public services they are entitled to. Participants in the focus group held in SVG specified that they receive training predominantly from non‐governmental organizations (NGOs), which often conduct two‐ or three‐day workshops and are oriented towards record keeping and financial accounting.…”

Labor movements and party system development: Why does the Caribbean have stable two-party systems, but the Pacific does not?

“…In fact, the main contemporary criticism of Caribbean political systems is not that they suffer from fragmentation and instability, but that they are too rigid, embodying a lack of flexibility that provides for stable electoral practice without genuinely democratic governance. The litany of complaints is endless, such that the political model has even been described as a ''Westmonster" (see, inter alia Payne, 1993;Ghany, 1994;Ryan, 1999;Quinn, 2015). They include especially a form of ''winner-takes-all" politics that regularly provides for dominant governments rather than oppositional politics.…”

Westminster in small states: comparing the Caribbean and pacific experience

“…Moreover, even the most cursory glance at the area studies literature from both regions reveals a host of similarities in the way democracy is practised in these settings, with executive domination and patron-client politics especially prominent (e.g. Peters 1992;Hinds 2008;Duncan and Hassall 2011;Quinn 2015;Veenendaal 2013;Corbett and Wood 2013).…”