Cuba: From “Dollarization” to “Euroization” or “Peso Reconsolidation”?

Since its “depenalization” in 1993, the U.S. dollar has become possibly a more significant component of Cuba's money supply than the old peso. What are the alternatives? The euro seems inappropriate, given the inevitability of eventual normalization of relations with the United States. More advantageous would be to restore the Cuban peso, though this would involve unifying the bifurcated economic structure and the dual monetary and exchange rate systems. The Cuban government has yet to announce its plans. This study argues that an appropriate mix of exchange rate, monetary, fiscal, and income or wage and salary policies should support a rehabilitation of the Cuban peso.     

Food Import Dependency in Cuba: Still the ‘Achilles’ Heel of the Revolution'?

The ‘Special Period in Peacetime’ plunged Cuba into an austerity programme of great severity. The crisis forced agriculture to shift dramatically from a model based on trade dependency (sugar exports providing most of the foreign currency) to one prioritising food import substitution. This alternative brought about major transformations in the country's agriculture. It revolutionised food production and decentralised land ownership. This article asks whether or not these changes reduced food dependency in Cuba. It provides an updated picture of Cuba's food import dependency, with a particular emphasis on the increased role of small farmers in food production during the 2000s.     

Women's Organisations and the Politics of Gender in Cuba's Urban Insurrection (1952–1958)

This article sheds new light on Cuba's urban insurrection to oust Fulgencio Batista by focusing on two all‐women's anti‐Batista groups. It charts the origins and developments of the groups, explores their conceptions about the importance of women's political action and examines the impact that participating in the insurrection had on group members. The article complicates long‐standing assumptions about women's low levels of participation in the insurrection and the absence of demands for gender equity among those who did participate by noting that some older women militants had histories with the feminist movement of the 1930s, and that many younger women were forced by the circumstances of the insurrection to confront and challenge contemporary gender norms.     

Cuba Just Yesterday and Today: Negotiating Toward What,Exactly?

Elise Andaya, Conceiving Cuba: Reproduction, Women, and the State in the Post‐Soviet Era. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2014. Notes, bibliography, index, 169 pp.; hardcover $80, paperback $26.95, ebook. Carmelo Mesa‐Lago and Jorge Pérez‐López, Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms. Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 2013. Notes, tables, bibliography, index, 310 pp.; hardcover $65, ebook $65. Archibald R. M. Ritter and Ted A. Henken, Entrepreneurial Cuba: The Changing Policy Landscape. Boulder: Lynne Reinner, 2015. Notes, tables, appendixes, bibliography, index, 384 pp.; hardcover $79.95, ebook $79.95. Paolo Spadoni, Cuba's Socialist Economy Today: Navigating Challenges and Change. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2014. Notes, tables, bibliography, index, 252 pp.; hardcover $65.     

The Second Wave of Indian Investments Abroad

This article makes an assessment of the recent international expansion of Indian companies by contrasting it to the earlier – much more modest – wave of investments abroad. It also traces the evolution of the Indian government's policy towards outwards investments and makes the claim that an important reason for the rise of investments abroad is the gradual relaxation of the Indian government's restrictions on capital outflow after the economic reforms of the 1990s. The new Indian investments abroad are characterised by being dispersed over a very large number of countries and economic sectors and – most remarkable – Indian companies are now also targeting the markets in Europe and the USA through acquisitions of local companies. At the same time, Indian companies have continued to expand their presence in other developing countries, where their activities may contribute to both economic progress and a reduction of economic dependence on relations with developed countries.     

The Soviet Military–Industrial Complex and Economic Reform

The Soviet military and civilian economies are so closely integrated that economic reform cannot be treated as a purely civilian issue. Faltering economic growth coming at the same time as new challenges in the arms race has therefore focused the military's attention on how to improve the performance of the civilian economy. The Soviet military press has begun to portray current reform initiatives in a positive light, and the military economy has even been the model for some of these initiatives. Nonetheless, the military has not publicly supported any reforms involving marketization or private enterprise. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 114, 124.     

New corporate Uyghur entrepreneurs in Urumqi,China

Although China's Uyghurs have progressively engaged in informal trade following economic reforms, in recent years a small group of corporate Uyghur entrepreneurs have positioned themselves in more formal industries where they hold a cultural advantage. However, we argue that the clustering of firms and a lack of experience and capital limits entrepreneurs' ability to compete with established Han businesses. This restricts Uyghur economic participation more generally, contributing to labour-market inequalities and ethnic tension in cities like Urumqi. The authors conclude that government support for Uyghur entrepreneurs is a crucial step to strengthen economic development and reduce ethnic tension in the region.     

Agrarian transformation in the Russian breadbasket: contemporary trends as manifest in Stavropol'

A team of US and Russian geographers combines field observations with satellite imagery in an examination of how major trends in Russian agriculture are manifest in one of Russia's most productive agricultural regions: Stavropol' Kray. A nationwide pattern of agricultural consolidation during the 1990s (featuring rural depopulation and a reduction in cultivated area and herd sizes upon the termination of Soviet-era subsidization levels) has had decidedly different outcomes in different parts of the vast Russian countryside. This paper – using Stavropol' as a surrogate for regions which by physical attributes, location, and human capital are best positioned to support agricultural activity – identifies a number of developments that may signal a new growth trajectory for agriculture in Russia: evolving specialization of former socialized farms in response to market conditions (in Stavropol' involving the shrinkage of animal husbandry and the release of surplus labor); increased levels of absentee (corporate) ownership of farmland in the more favorable locations; decoupling of the economic fate of large farms (success) from local municipal budgets (deficiency); and the expansion of non-Russian ethnic communities in the countryside, with attendant land use changes.     

Economic Liberalisation,Changes in Governance Structure and Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka

The last four decades have seen considerable economic, political and cultural changes in Sri Lanka. Among the dominant themes and discourses of the period are economic liberalisation, changes in governance and the conflict between the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (portrayed as an ethnic conflict). The economic liberalisation policies of the centre-right government that came to power in 1977 opened up the country to foreign capital and relaxed emigration rules and import restrictions. This government also introduced changes to the Westminster-style democratic system by instituting a centralised governance structure headed by a directly elected executive president. These changes and their implementation imposed significant restrictions on human liberties and rights. These changes are considered as a context for the emergence of conflicts between various central governments and Tamil militants in the early 1980s. This topic has been relatively under-researched. The article attempts to grasp the complexities surrounding this topic on the basis of a review of relevant literature and the underlying meanings of the war, particularly in relation to the maintenance of patron-client relations and a globalising economy. In concluding, the article reiterates the importance of a peace process and political reforms related to national identity and allegiance to an inclusive nation.     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed in this issue. Craig Arceneaux and David Pion‐Berlin, Transforming Latin America: The International and Domestic Origins of Change. Steven Levitsky and María Victoria Murillo, eds., Argentine Democracy: The Politics of Institutional Weakness. Benjamin Kohl and Linda Farthing, Impasse in Bolivia: Neoliberal Hegemony and Popular Resistance. Consuelo Cruz, Political Culture and Institutional Development in Costa Rica and Nicaragua: World Making in the Tropics. Carmelo Mesa‐Lago and Jorge Pérez‐López, Cuba's Aborted Reform: Socioeconomic Effects, International Comparisons, and Transition Policies. Damián J. Fernández, ed., Cuba Transnational. Paul Lawrence Haber, Power from Experience: Urban Popular Movements in Late‐Twentieth‐Century Mexico. Leslie Anderson and Lawrence Dodd, Learning Democracy: Citizen Engagement and Electoral Choice in Nicaragua, 1990‐2001. Jeremy M. Weinstein, Inside Rebellion: The Politics of Insurgent Violence.     

“Characteristically Generous”? Australian Responses to Refugees Prior to 1951

When Australia pledged to accept 15,000 Jewish refugees from Europe in 1938, it was applauded by the London Times as “a characteristically generous contribution” and an example for others. Australia's reputation for generous humanitarianism was solidified after the war when it absorbed more than 180,000 of Europe's Displaced Persons and committed to international human rights instruments designed to protect refugees and asylum seekers. This reputation has been used to both defend and critique the nation's contemporary responses to asylum seekers. Recent Australian Prime Ministers have invoked Australia's proud record of refugee resettlement to deflect criticism of their tough border control policies, policies which critics charge repudiate the nation's humanitarian traditions. This article critically reviews the history of Australia's responses to refugees and asylum seekers prior to 1951 and demonstrates that contemporary border control policies are neither a deviation from, nor defence of, a proud humanitarian record. Rather, they embody the migration management approach to refugees that provided impetus for Federation in 1901, governed Australia's response to the Jewish refugee crisis in the 1930s, and shaped its conditional acceptance of the Displaced Persons and the position it adopted in the drafting of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees in 1951.     

An African response to the new wave of afro‐pessimism

The Afro‐pessimism that has resurfaced in parts of the world has no foundation and has provoked strong objections on several grounds. First, the timing is inappropriate as a number of new development indicators suggest that a good basis is now being laid in Africa for a better future economic performance. Secondly, there is an upsurge of Afro‐optimism among African and world leaders with the advent of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad). But more fundamentally, the growth concept which forms the basis for bleak projections on Africa's ability to reduce poverty, is flawed and the presumed strong growth‐poverty correlation empirically discredited. Additionally, it is a fallacy to assume that the reforms of the past 20 years were consistent with the continent's long‐term development trajectories given that the continent was unresponsive, remaining poor and ‘structurally undevelopable’.

On the contrary, these reforms have been pronounced by a World Bank assessment team as being defective in objectives and design, operationally dysfunctional and an example of massive resource misallocation, all of which have collectively worsened Africa's poverty and income disparity conditions. Particularly ironic is the concept of ‘structural stability’ prescribed in the ‘Memorandum for a New Start for German African Policy’, as it falls short of engaging fully and comprehensively the broader spectrum of structural distortions, weaknesses and rigidities, including the lack of economic structural transformation which is critical for achieving sustained economic growth and significant poverty reduction. The international community will now have to look at channelling resources to reshape, support and refine Africa's own initiative — Nepad.     

Gorbachev's Economic Strategy: A Preliminary Assessment

Gorbachev's economic strategy for the remainder of this decade is analyzed using the information contained in the Twelfth Five-Year Plan covering the years 1986-1990. The plan calls for an acceleration in the rate of economic growth achieved through a modernization of industry, a restructuring of investment, and increased labor effort on the part of the entire labor force. The economic reforms which accompany the plan are fairly modest. Analysis of the plan shows that it is very ambitious, and probably unachievable, although some improvement in economic performance is not excluded. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: 052, 113, 124.     

“The greenery of well-engineered factory complexes”: Fiji's garment-led export industrialization strategy

Abstract

In February 1990 Navitilai Naisoro, the Sussex University-educated permanent secretary to the Fiji Ministry of Trade and Commerce, outlined to students at the University of the South Pacific in Suva his vision for Fiji's future. “My hope,” he said, “is that one day instead of seeing the greenery of sugar cane fields, we see the greenery of well-engineered factory complexes.” In 1990 he had every reason to believe that his dream was well on its way to fruition. As one of the self-proclaimed “New Fijian” economic managers appointed following the 1987 military coups, Naisoro had been at the forefront of a radical redirection in Fiji's economic policies. The coups had precipitated a massive currency devaluation of 35 percent, 12 percent inflation (unofficial estimates placed inflation at 26 percent), a new wage freeze, an upsurge in unemployment, and growing levels of poverty and destitution. Investment capital had dried up and the economy contracted, affecting Fiji's predominant import substitution industries in a way that high protective barriers could not assist.     

Aquí en el Ghetto: Hip‐hop in Colombia,Cuba, and Mexico

Hip‐hop music has become an important tool worldwide for poor, marginalized youth to reflect on their lived experiences. This article traces the genre's production from its spontaneous origins in the urban ghettos of New York to its commoditization for global consumption and its evolution in three different Latin American settings: Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico. The article explores how hip‐hop has been appropriated in each country and has been used to express the performers’ reflections on social, political, and economic problems. It also looks at the interplay between the homogenizing tendencies of global hip‐hop and its local reception.     

Mubarak's Constitutional Reforms

Egypt's President, Hosni Mubarak, is noted for having perfected the art of seemingly introducing reforms while actually consolidating his autocratic rule. In response to domestic and international pressure, he has recently introduced further reforms, in the hope of silencing the opposition and officially rectifying Egypt's poor human rights record. In his speeches and public statements, Mubarak has promised to set Egypt on the road to freedom, human rights, and democracy. He has established a National Council for Human Rights, more freedom for political parties and the press, and a series of constitutional amendments liberalising presidential elections and allowing more democracy, with a great deal of fanfare. This paper will consider the significance in reality of these constitutional amendments, particularly as regards human rights and democracy, the powers of the president and the role of non-governmental organisations and ordinary citizens in decision making. We conclude that, welcome as they are, the reforms have so far not been effective in moderating the president's absolute authority, neither have they lived up to public expectations. Whatever reform measures the Egyptian government has reluctantly introduced have been drained of any real substance by legal stratagems or hedged with all sorts of restrictions.     

From Polarisation to Integration in Vietnam

This paper analyses the growth trajectory of China and related structural change to assess China's capacity to continue its rapid growth over the next decade. The evidence demonstrates that the multi-path approach undertaken has enabled China to transform its economy from low value-added towards high value-added activities through structural change from low to high value-added industries, as well as upgrading within industries. In doing so, China did not follow the neo-liberal advocacy of freeing markets. Selective state interventions facilitated China's transformation from an agricultural to an industrial economy over the last few decades. Upgrading towards higher value-added activities and the continuing strength of macroeconomic indicators, such as balance of payment and capital account surpluses, and low trade intensity of GDP and debt service along with significant deepening in human capital and R&;D activities, suggests that China will continue to grow relatively rapidly over the next decade. To do this China needs to find solutions to growing deficits in power and water supply, and potentially dangerous political upheavals if growing economic inequality problems are not solved.     

Authoritarian Regimes and Their Permitted Oppositions: Election Day Outcomes in Cuba

Electoral opposition to long‐established authoritarian regimes may be loyal or rejectionist. Loyal oppositionists vote to send a selective signal to rulers; rejectionist oppositionists vote blank or void the ballot in full disapproval. In Cuba, the number of candidates equals the number of seats, yet voters may vote blank, void, or selectively (choosing some but not all candidates on the ballot), although the Communist Party has campaigned for all candidates. This article uses a unique dataset for Cuba's 2013 National Assembly elections to study aggregate opposition outcomes. It shows the emergence of a loyal opposition, which sometimes votes for and sometimes against Communist Party candidates. The rejectionist opposition, stable over time, never votes for Communist Party candidates; it is found where the Communist Party behaves monopolistically. This combined opposition has better national‐level political information; it comes from more educated or larger urban areas or areas closer to Havana.     

From Planning to Market: A Framework for Cuba

The measures introduced by Raúl Castro since 2008 and the most recent US–Cuba policy change indicate that Cuba is shifting from a planned and highly centralised state socialist economic model toward one in which economic actors and markets become main drivers of the economy. The examples of Asian and Central and Eastern European socialist countries suggest four distinguished pathways for such transition. The question is which one may provide a feasible model for Cuba. Based on the country's economic and population structure, this study places the Cuban case within the framework of socialist economic transitions and explores some policy implications.     

The political economy of Mozambique twenty years on: A post-conflict success story?

The following article investigates the state of Mozambique's political economy 20 years after the end of its civil war between FRELIMO and RENAMO, in 1992. This paper is written from the theoretical perspectives of growing criticism of the neo-liberal assumptions that underlie development policy and places the analysis of Mozambique's economic growth and development within the field of development studies as they are played out in African realities. Mozambique is viewed by the donor community and multilateral institutions as a success story of postwar construction, yet a closer look at the development outcomes in Mozambique calls this conclusion into question. The paper found that, despite improvements in reducing the number of people living in poverty between 1992 and 2012, hunger persists and malnutrition and diseases such as malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis are on the increase. The author concludes that global governance reforms that take cognisance of Mozambique's and indeed Africa's governance challenges are needed to forge a development paradigm relevant for Africa.