Perfect Failure: the USA,Cuba and the Bay of Pigs, 1961

In 1961 the US Central Intelligence Agency master‐minded a sea‐borne invasion by Cuban exiles aimed at overthrowing the regime headed by Fidel Castro. With minimal logistical support from the USA the attempted counter‐coup launched at the Bay of Pigs was an unqualified disaster: a ‘perfect failure’, in the words of an authoritative contemporary. This essay locates the fiasco in the longer history of US–Cuban relations, concentrating on the Cold War years, the history of US political intervention and subversion in Latin America, and the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and the rise of Castro himself—both men offering different models of Latin American caudillismo (the power and cult of military strongmen). The essay concludes with an analysis of Cuba as an issue in US domestic politics and the impact of the Bay of Pigs in consolidating the Cuban revolution and setting the framework for the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962.     

The Cuban revolution and its acolytes

He has written widely on Cuba and Fidel Castro. Among his books are Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution; Cuba, Castro, and the Caribbean;and Secret Report on the Cuban Revolution (all published by Transaction).     

The other hidden hand: Soviet and Cuban intelligence in Allende’s Chile

The role of Soviet and Cuban covert activities in Allende’s Chile has not been given sufficient consideration. This paper outlines the significant actions that the KGB and the Cuban DGI undertook there, showing that both organizations played important roles in both operating directly against the CIA and by supporting local actors. The results of their efforts, however, may have been negative to Allende’s coalition by focusing on factional or ideological interests. A broad array of sources is brought together to shed light on this historical gap. The result is a new paradigm in which we can consider this dramatic period.     

Mirroring Risk: The Cuban Missile Estimation

The Cuban Missile Crisis is by this point well known to all scholars of international politics. Yet, although it has yielded countless lessons over the years, one critical aspect of the case has remained unexamined: the failure of estimation prior to the crisis that led US officials to discount the possibility of a missile deployment in Cuba. This article re-examines US intelligence estimates of the Soviet Union prior to the Cuban Missile Crisis in light of the concept of ‘mirroring risk’, introduced in this article. I present a framework for understanding a class of intelligence failures that are caused by the mis-assessment of how an adversary frames a decision and the risks that they are willing to take. I also present a new two-stage process for understanding how individuals assess the risk-propensity of adversaries in international politics.     

Campaign Contributions and U.S. Foreign Policy Outcomes: An Analysis of Cuban American Interests

To what extent are ethnic minority interest groups able to influence U.S. foreign policy? Current case study research has identified several factors that may condition the ability of diasporic groups to influence foreign policy toward ancestral “homelands.” To this point, existing studies have been unable to isolate the impact of campaign contributions from other factors that may influence U.S. foreign policy decision making. The current study uses a combination of conditional and standard logistic regression to examine the impact of Cuban American interest group and individual campaign contributions on a series of votes on key amendments in the 108^th and 109^th Congresses. Results from the study support the idea that the Cuban diasporic community in the United States has had an impact on U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba. However, there are significant limits to this influence conditioned in part by issue salience.     

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF MEXICAN AND CUBAN IMMIGRANTS BY POLITICIANS

Schneider and Ingram (1993) propose that the amount and quality of service that target groups receive from their government is related to two factors: political power (strong or weak); and the target groups’ image in the public eye (positive or negative), also known as “social constructions.” This research examines political candidates’ social constructions of Mexican and Cuban immigrants in major newspapers. Using newspaper articles from Lexis/Nexus (an electronic newspaper database), we content analyzed 495 major US newspapers over a six‐year period. Our results indicate that Latin American immigration, particularly Mexican immigration, is championed as a political platform in ways consistent with Schneider and Ingram's model.     

Population aging in Cuba

"This article presents a brief discussion of the primary aspects associated with aging of the Cuban population, from a demographic, socioeconomic and political perspective. The first issue discussed in the article is how international immigration has contributed to the aging process of the country's population, and the possible causes of this immigration. The author...points out the efforts that the country is making to deal with an accelerated increase in the sixties-plus population...." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

The epistemic benefits of deliberative democracy

One instrumental defense of democracy is epistemic in character: Insofar as there is a correct answer to be found to some question being politically addressed, democratic decision-making procedures are more likely to find it than any other. But that assumes that the correct answer appears on the agenda in the first place, and that the agenda is not so cluttered that it gets lost there. Two-stage deliberative procedures can help with both problems, first by populating the agenda and then by winnowing it. A good example of both occurring is found in the detailed records now available of top secret ExComm deliberations surrounding the US government’s response to the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.     

The Cuban family: principal sociodemographic features that have characterized its development and dynamics

"This study deals with the principal sociodemographic features which have characterized the development and dynamics of the Cuban family during the last decade. It also describes the way in which sociocultural changes taking place in Cuba have influenced the family. The article includes an analysis of average age at first marriage or union, types of marriage, changes in fertility rates (and how women contribute to these changes depending on their age), and the dissolution of the family unit." (SUMMARY IN ENG)     

The dictators’ domino theory: a Caribbean Basin anti-communist network, 1947–1952

This article uncovers a Caribbean Basin anti-communist intelligence network independent of the U.S. government and the international Cold War. Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, Honduran dictator Tiburcio Carías, and Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo characterized local democratic developments as communist threats to their regimes’ national security. With the 1947 Cayo Confites expedition and the 1948 Costa Rican Civil War, the military dictators coalesced into an informal network that increasingly shared intelligence. Joined by the Venezuelan military junta and Fulgencio Batista’s Cuban dictatorship, members nurtured a Caribbean Basin anti-communist domino theory characterising threats to one regime as a transnational danger to regional stability.     

The 1962 Cuban intelligence estimate: A methodological perspective

The performance of American intelligence in the 1962 Cuban crisis was measured inadequately. An account of its failures suggests that the roots of poor performance, and of SNIE 85–3–62 in particular, were in a flawed methodological approach. Problems in four aspects of the intelligence methodology are identified: in the use of comparative logic; in the use of evidence for theory validation; in the formulation of research questions; and in the development and review of assumptions. Finally, the methodological discussion yields lessons concerning the analysis of intelligence performance and makes suggestions for improvement of the intelligence assessment process.     

North Korea's Internet strategy and its political implications

Abstract

During recent years, the role of information technology in shaping politics and social movements in the digital age is drawing increasing scholarly attention. There is, however, little such literature on North Korea as the country remains almost completely cut off from the Internet. Since the mid-1990s, the DPRK government has strategically developed its information and communication technology and has subsequently built a domestic intranet. Although North Korea keeps a minimal presence on the web, there are signs that the country is taking small and cautious steps to allow some social elites to take advantage of the Internet in order to leapfrog its economic development. Indeed, a high-profile defector indicated that North Korea will most likely start allowing wider but limited internet access in the near future. This paper examines North Korea's intranet and Internet policies and explores their political implications by drawing upon first-hand data from Korean sources and existing literature as well as by juxtaposing the North Korean case with other communist regimes such as China and Cuba in terms of their attempts to control and manipulate the Internet. It shows that the DPRK government is likely to learn from the Chinese and Cuban experiences and adopt a ‘Mosquito-Net’ model in controlling the Internet in an effort to attract foreign investment while keeping out information deemed threatening by the regime.     

Espionage and the cold war: Oleg Penkovsky and the Cuban missile crisis

Oleg Penkovsky spied for SIS and the CIA during a crucial phase of the Cold War. Acclaimed as one of the most important spies of the century, his role in the Cuban missile crisis has been portrayed as of pre‐eminent importance to the outcome. Other historians have challenged this interpretation, while some believe that far from working for the West, Penkovsky was an instrument of Soviet strategic deception. This article draws upon CIA records and recent scholarship on the missile crisis to adjudicate on these various claims, and to show where, how and why much of the literature exaggerates and distorts Penkovsky's influence and importance. Avenues for further research are also identified.     

Popular mobilization and disaster management in Cuba

Cuba has effectively implemented a system of popular mobilization and education to prepare people for such natural disasters as hurricanes. Compliance with evacuation orders is impressive. Top priority is attached to saving lives. The country's acclaimed programme accounts for the limited toll of Hurricane Michelle in November 2001, which was the most powerful storm since 1944. Five Cubans died in the storm, which wreaked havoc in Jamaica, Honduras, and Nicaragua. This article reviews recent Cuban experience in disaster preparedness, which was achieved despite material scarcity. Since the prestigious Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns of increased susceptibility to disasters in future, Cuba's record deserves wide attention. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Corporate Power and Political Science

Miles Wolpin. Alternative Security and Military Dissent. Bethesda, MD: Austin &; Winfield. 1994. 286 pp. $19.95.

Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler. Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1994. 366 pp.

Glenn D. Paige. To Nonviolent Political Science: From Seasons of Violence. Honolulu: Center for Global Nonviolence Planning Project, Matsunaga Institute for Peace, University of Hawaii, 1993.179 pp.

Frank T. Fitzgerald. The Cuban Revolution in Crisis: From Managing Socialism to Managing Survival. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994. 239 pp.

Mandy Macdonald and Mike Gatehouse. In the Mountains of Morazán: Portrait of a Returned Refugee Community in El Salvador. London: Latin America Bureau. 1995. 216 pp.

Catherine Samary. Yugoslavia Dismembered. Translated by Peter Drucker. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1995.185 pp. (Published asLe Déchirure yougoslave, 1994, L'Harmattan.)     

Information disclosure policy: Do state data processing efforts help more than the information disclosure itself?

The Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) was expected to reduce health risks stemming from emissions of hazardous chemicals by increasing public pressure on polluters. However, raw TRI data fails to transmit accurate information fitted to the public's interest. TRI is a massive and complex data set that, in its raw form, provides information on the pounds of toxics released, rather than the risks these releases pose to human health, which is the true quantity of interest. Consequently, raw TRI data needs to be refined and interpreted in terms of health risks by its users, which requires analytical sophistication and substantial data processing. State governments have attempted to increase of the usefulness of the TRI to the general public via two types of policies: (1) selection and dissemination of raw TRI data for plants within the state, and (2) data processing activities producing more refined reports and further data analysis. This study assesses the effectiveness of those two policies, asking how much each contributes to the intended policy outcome of reducing health risks. Our results show that state‐level data dissemination efforts lowered the total number of pounds of chemicals released, but had little effect on health risks. State‐level data processing efforts, in contrast, did lead to significant reductions in health risks. We conclude that simple dissemination of the data was ineffective (and even counterproductive in some instances), and that the states' data processing efforts have played a critical role in achieving the TRI's intended policy goal by providing better information to end users. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Measuring error for adjacent policy position estimates: Dealing with uncertainty using CMP data

Careful users of CMP party position data should take the uncertainty of position estimates into account. We compare and evaluate two current approaches that provide error estimates for party positions. Researchers of the CMP group identify measurement error in quantitative content analysis as the cause of uncertainty about position estimates, whereas a second approach by Benoit et al. (2009) attributes the uncertainty of position estimates to a stochastic generation of election programs. We illustrate the commonalities and differences of these approaches and provide two empirical applications, the identification of the left–right order of parties and of policy shifts by parties, using CMP data for 25 countries. Despite conceptual differences, results in these applications are surprisingly similar.     

Modeling the influence of polls on elections: a population dynamics approach

We propose a population dynamics model for quantifying the effects of polling data on the outcome of multi-party elections decided by a majority-rule voting process. We divide the population into two groups: committed voters impervious to polling data, and susceptible voters whose decision to vote is influenced by data, depending on its reliability. This population-based approach to modeling the process sidesteps the problem of upscaling models based upon the choices made by individuals. We find releasing poll data is not advantageous to leading candidates, but it can be exploited by those closely trailing. The analysis identifies the particular type of voting impetus at play in different stages of an election and could help strategists optimize their influence on susceptible voters.     

The Design and Practice of Integrating Evidence: Connecting Performance Management with Program Evaluation

In recent decades, governments have invested in the creation of two forms of knowledge production about government performance: program evaluations and performance management. Prior research has noted tensions between these two approaches and the potential for complementarities when they are aligned. This article offers empirical evidence on how program evaluations connect with performance management in the U.S. federal government in 2000 and 2013. In the later time period, there is an interactive effect between the two approaches, which, the authors argue, reflects deliberate efforts by the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations to build closer connections between program evaluation and performance management. Drawing on the 2013 data, the authors offer evidence that how evaluations are implemented matters and that evaluations facilitate performance information use by reducing the causal uncertainty that managers face as they try to make sense of what performance data mean.     

Left-right perceptions,partisan preferences,electoral participation,and partisan choice in France

An analysis based on survey data shows that electoral participation at the second ballot in France can be accounted for by partisan preferences but not by left-right perceptions of party locations. This finding runs counter to the work of Rosenthal and Sen (1973), who validated a spatial model of participation at the second ballot employing left-right perceptions and partisan preferences interchangeably. Because they use aggregate data, Rosenthal and Sen (1973) are restricted in two ways that, operating interactively, lead them to an unwarranted conclusion concerning the power of left-right perceptions. Later work by Rosenthal and Sen (1977) indicating that left-right perceptions can account for shifts in partisan choice between the two ballots by voters who have decided to participate is confirmed, but partisan preferences account even better for second-ballot choices. Left-right perceptions and partisan sympathies are related, but discrete partisan attitudes are a more powerful factor than left-right perceptions in French second-ballot electoral behavior.