Democracy Delayed: The Case of Castro's Cuba

Introduction

Introduction In the immediate aftermath of the fall of communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe, a widespread expectation emerged that the domino effect would reach the Caribbean without much delay. As the Castro dictatorship nonetheless endured , explanations for its staying power proliferated. Despite the profusion of hypotheses for Cuba’s non-transition, when one evaluates the explanations from a comparative perspective and in light of available data from Cuba, one finds that these hypotheses are wrong or inadequate. It has become increasingly important to formulate a sound explanation for the non-transition. There are other cases of non-transition from communism, such as those in China, Vietnam, and North Korea. While I do not include these cases in this book, a detailed analysis of the Cuban case can serve to better understand other instances of non-transition from communism.1 Models of transitions from communism based on the experiences of Latin America and Southern Europe showed limitations. Guillermo O’Donnell’s observation that revolutionary paths from dictatorships do not lead to democratic regimes became outdated by the experiences of East Germany and Czechoslovakia.2 Mark Thompson has cogently argued that transitions in these countries were democratic revolutions.3 A transition to democracy in Cuba under the regime of Fidel Castro could result from progressively larger and repeated protests, as in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. To explain the non-transition in Cuba one has to answer the question why continuous mass demonstrations developed in Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and Romania and not in Cuba. I agree with the logical argument that a transition has not taken place in Cuba because Cuba is different from Eastern Europe. But in the literature on Cuba the differences that have been posed are the wrong ones. The fundamental obstacle to a transition in Cuba is that most people feel incapable of inducing a political transformation . Large-scale participation in protests that demand democratization have not occurred in Cuba mainly because the majority of the population thinks that their participation in opposition activities would be ineffective in achieving change. Unless people believe that their participation in acts of opposition can bring about political changes, there are no mass demonstrations in the streets and hence no transition by regime collapse. What really matters for mass demonstrations is what people in the general population think. While courageous civil society activists defy the regime, without repeated, large-scale demonstrations by the general population, those who thus far are not involved in any independent or opposition activities, there cannot be a transition from below. Democratic activists comprise a small percentage of the population and therefore cannot by themselves produce mass protests of the magnitude that brought about the collapse of regimes in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. The Cuban case points to the crucial importance for a transition by collapse of two factors: (1) a widespread belief in the population that change is possible ; and (2) the ability of independent sources of communication to reach a large percentage of the people regularly. Independent means of communication are vital to development of a sense of political efficacy among citizens. In Cuba, in contrast to the Eastern European cases at the end of the 1980s, these two factors are missing. The unwillingness of the Clinton administration to promote a political transition in Cuba was the key reason for the absence of effective channels of independent communication in the island. It remains to be seen if the administration of George W. Bush will help make independent sources of information available to most of the population in Cuba. By mid-2001, President Bush had stated that he is willing to implement policies that would quickly undermine the government of Fidel Castro. Yet, as of January 2002, there was no evidence that the Bush administration was doing anything new to foster a transition in Cuba. What he has done is to show stronger support than President Clinton did for the continuation of the economic embargo. As Przeworski observes, questions about possibility are theoretical and necessarily involve propositions that are counterfactual.4 Counterfactuals play a key role in evaluating causal hypotheses in political science. Scholars refer to counterfactual cases in which the postulated cause is assumed to be absent. Arguments to support a hypothesis using counterfactuals gain credibility from theories that have some independent empirical support and from historical facts relevant to the counterfactual case. In his discussion of counterfactuals, xiv Introduction James Fearon indicates...