Cape Verde: Politics, Economics and Society (Marxist Regimes Series)

228 Pages·1988·30.726 MB·English

by  Colm Foy

Economics and Society
Politics,
Colm Foy
Pb
EG
J
Boston
Public Library
• -
CAPE VERDE
WITHDRAWN
No longer the property ofthe
Boston Public Library.
Sale ofthis material benefits the Library.
Marxist Regimes Series
Series editor: Bogdan Szajkowski,
Department of Sociology, University College,
Cardiff
Afghanistan BhabaniSenGupta
Angola KeithSomerville
Bulgaria Robert Mclntyre
J.
Cape Verde Colm Foy
China MarcBlecher
Cuba MaxAzicri
Ethiopia PeterSchwab
GermanDemocraticRepublic MikeDennis
Ghana Donald Ray
I.
Grenada TonyThorndike
Guinea-Bissau RosemaryE.GalliandJocelynJones
Guyana ColinBaberand HenryB.Jeffrey
Hungary Hans-GeorgHeinrich
Kampuchea MichaelVickery
Laos MartinStuart-Fox
Madagascar Maureen Covell
MarxistLocalGovernmentsin WesternEuropeandJapan ed.BogdanSzajkowski
MarxistStateGovernmentinIndia T. Nossiter
J.
Mongolia Alan K.Sanders
J.
Nicaragua DavidClose
Poland George Kolankiewicz andPaul G.Lewis
P.D.R. Yemen TareqandJacquelineIsmael
Romania Michael Shafir
Soviet Union Ronald Hill
J.
Surinam HenkE.Chin and HansBuddingh'
Vietnam Melanie Beresford
Yugoslavia Bruce McFarlane
Further Titles
Albania
BeninandTheCongo
Czechoslovakia
DemocraticPeople'sRepublicofKorea
Mozambique
Zimbabwe
AdaptationsofCommunism
ComparativeAnalysis
CumulativeIndex
CAPE VERDE
Politics, Economics and Society
Colm Foy
Pinter Publishers
U London and New York
©ColmFoy 1988
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmittedbyanyothermeanswithout
thepriorwrittenpermissionofthecopyrightholder.Pleasedirect
allenquiriestothepublishers.
FirstpublishedinGreatBritainin 1988by
PinterPublishersLimited
25FloralStreet,LondonWC2E9DS
British LibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
ACIPcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefrom theBritishLibrary.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Foy,Colm.
CapeVerde:politics,economics,andsociety.
(Marxistregimesseries)
Bibliography: p.
Includesindex
1. CapeVerde—Politicsandgovernment—1975-
2. CapeVerde—Economicconditions. 3. CapeVerde-
Socialconditions. I. Title. II. Series.
DT671.C28F68 1988 966'.5803 88-17988
ISBN0-86187-483-8
ISBN0-80187-484-6(pbk.)
EG
Iypcsct InJoshua AsvuKites I united,Oxford
Printed inGrcai Britain b\ SRP I td. Exeter
Editor's Preface
Cape Verde, a small and somewhat forbidding archipelago in the
Atlantic Ocean ott the coast of Atrica, occupies an important strategic
position in an area that has been the subjectofgreatpowerrivalries for
more than a decade now. The country's history, culture,structuresand
pace ot development have been shaped to a great extentby its location
and the subsequent constraints on its social, economic and political
development.
This, the first comprehensive study of Cape Verde's politics,
economics and society, gives a detailed analysis of the country's
development from pre-colonial times to the present. The monograph
is a timely and very important contribution to the overall analysis of
Marxist experiments. It gives the reader a unique insight on the
problems, dilemmas and limited options facing such countries in the
developing world.
The study ofMarxist regimes has commonlybeen equatedwith the
studyofcommunistpoliticalsystems.Therewereseveralhistoricaland
methodological reasons for this. For many years it was not difficult to
distinguish the eightregimes in EasternEurope and fourinAsiawhich
resoundingly claimed adherence to the tenets ofMarxism and more
particularly to their Soviet interpretation—Marxism-Leninism. These
regimes, variously called 'People's Republic', 'People's Democratic
Republic', or 'Democratic Republic', claimed to have derived their
inspiration from the Soviet Union, to which, indeed, in the over-
whelming number ofcases they owed their establishment.
To manyscholarsandanalyststheseregimesrepresentedamultipli-
cation o( and geographical extension of the 'Soviet model' and
consequently of the Soviet sphere ofinfluence. Although there were
clearly substantial similarities between the Soviet Union and the
people's democracies, especially in the initial phases oftheir develop-
ment, these were often overstressed at the expense of noticing the
differences between these political systems.
vi Editor'sPreface
It took a few years for scholars to realize that generalizing the
particular, i.e., applying the Soviet experience to other states ruled by
eliteswhichclaimedtobeguidedby'scientificsocialism',wasnotgood
enough. The relative simplicity of the assumption of a cohesive
communist bloc was questioned after the expulsion of Yugoslavia
from the Communist Information Bureau in 1948 and in particular
after the workers' riots in Poznaii in 1956 and the Hungarian revolu-
tion of the same year. By the mid-1960s, the totalitarian model of
communist politics, which until then had been very much in force,
began to crumble. As some ofthese regimes articulated demands for a
distinctive path of socialist development, many specialists studying
these systems began to notice that the cohesiveness ofthe communist
blocwas less apparentthan had been claimed before.
Also by the mid-1960s, in the newly independent African states
'democratic' multi-party states were turning into one-party states or
military dictatorships, thus questioning the inherent superiority of
liberal democracy,capitalismand thevalues thatwentwithit. Scholars
now began to ponder on the simple contrast between multi-party
democracyand aone-partytotalitarianrulethathadsatisfiedanearlier
generation.
More importantly, however, by the beginning ofthat decade Cuba
had a revolutionwithoutSoviethelp, arevolutionwhichsubsequently
became to many political elites in the Third World not only an
inspiration but a clear military, political and ideological example to
follow. Apart from its romantic appeal, to many nationalist move-
ments the Cuban revolution also demonstrated a novel way of
conducting and winning a nationalist, anti-imperialist war and
accepting Marxism as the state ideology without a vanguard com-
munist party. The Cuban precedentwas subsequentlyfollowed inone
respect or another by scores ofThird World regimes, which used the
adoption of 'scientific socialism' tied to the tradition of Marxist
thought as a form of mobilization, legitimation orassociation with the
prestigious symbols and powerful high-status regimes such as the
Soviet Union, China, Cuba and Vietnam.
I Vspitc all these changes the smdyofMarxistregimes remains inits
Editor'sPreface vii
infancy and continues to be hampered by constant and not always
pertinent comparison with the Soviet Union, thus somewhat blurring
the important underlying common theme—the 'scientific theory' of
the laws of: development ofhuman society and human history. This
doctrine is claimed by the leadership ofthese regimes to consist ofthe
discovery ot objective causal relationships; it is used to analyse the
contradictionswhicharisebetweengoalsandactualityinthepursuitof
a common destiny. Thus the political elites of: these countries have
been and continue to be influenced in both their ideology and their
political practice by Marxism more than any other current ofsocial
thought and political practice.
The growth in the number and global significance, as well as the
ideological, political and economic impact, of Marxist regimes has
presented scholars and students with an increasing challenge. In
meenng this challenge, social scientists on both sides ofthe political
divide have put forward a dazzling profusion of terms, models,
programmes and varieties ot interpretation. It is against the back-
ground of this profusion that the present comprehensive series on
Marxist regimes is offered.
This collection of monographs is envisaged as a scries of multi-
disciplinary textbooks on the governments, politics, economics and
society ofthese countries. Each ofthe monographs was prepared by a
specialist on the country concerned. Thus, over fifty scholars from all
over the world have contributed monographs which were based on
first-hand knowledge. The geographical diversity of the authors,
combined with the fact thatas agroup theyrepresentmanydisciplines
of social science, gives their individual analyses and the series as a
whole an additional dimension.
Each of the scholars who contributed to this series was asked to
analysesuch topicsas thepolitical culture, thegovernmentalstructure,
the ruling party, other mass organizations, party-state relations, the
policy process, the economy, domestic and foreign relations together
with any features peculiar to the country under discussion.
Thisseriesdoesnotaimatassigningauthenticityorauthoritytoany
single one of the political systems included in it. It shows that,
viii Editor'sPreface
depending on a variety of historical, cultural, ethnic and political
factors, the pursuit ofgoals derived from the tenets ofMarxism has
produced different political forms at different times and in different
places. It also illustrates the rich diversityamong these societies,where
attempts to achieve a synthesis between goals derived from Marxism
on the one hand, and national realities on the other, have often meant
distinctiveapproaches and solutions to theproblems ofsocial,political
and economic development.
UniversityCollege BogdanSzajkowski
Cardiff