Politics
Caribbean needs to head towards a new development trajectory
With the untimely passing of Norman Girvan, the last Caribbean political economist of the earlier critical tradition, a major gap in radical ideas needs to be filled. These ideas must come from a new generation of researchers willing to take the lead, and who have practical problems of the region at the heart of their concerns, drawing up Girvan’s and others’ very rich insights.
Indeed, the history of the English-speaking Caribbean has been punctuated by several important opportunities for learning and transformation. One of these most recent experiences should indeed have been the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), yet to be fully implemented in some jurisdictions.
The end of preferential access to European markets had several precursors, for which it seemed Caribbean policymakers; institutions and private sector were ill-prepared. The expansion of the European Union and global economic restructuring, based on World Trade Organization (WTO) rules, meant that preferential trade access was untenable.
Indeed in several respects, the WTO and other multilateral agencies have not always acted in the best interest of developing countries, compared to experiences of transformation in richer countries. However, it might have done past leaders and policy-makers well to lay the groundwork for inter-generational dialogue and put in place mechanisms for institutional learning. Indeed, existing perennial challenges have implications for structural change that is necessary for development in the Caribbean.
Caribbean economic institutions have experimented with various strategies and organizational forms to stimulate economic growth. From state-driven industrialization, to import substitution, infant industry protection (somewhat derailed by global rules), industrialization by invitation, trade centric growth, and new forms of liberalization have had mixed results at best.
Industrialization to a large extent has been premature, except in the larger states, like Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname Belize, and to a lesser extent Jamaica. These varied approaches have been consistent with the ebbs and flows of the global economy into which the region has long been integrated.
Notwithstanding the radical approaches advocated by the New World Group, it has been difficult to identify a distinctive and truly self-sustaining model. However, there is enormous opportunity for learning from these past efforts that have hitherto been misunderstood or ignored, that could potentially have a transformative effect in fashioning fit-for-purpose economic institutions.
