Small States in Global Affairs: The Foreign Policies of the Caribbean Community

289 Pages·2007·1.33 MB·English

by  Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner

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Small States in Global Affairs
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Small States in Global Affairs
The Foreign Policies of the
Caribbean Community (Caricom)
Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner
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Small States in Global Affairs
Copyright © Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner, 2008.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2008 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLANTM
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS.
Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom
and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4039-8001- 4
ISBN-10: 1-4039-8001- 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Braveboy-Wagner, Jacqueline Anne.
Small states in global affairs : the foreign policies of the Caribbean community
(CARICOM) / Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-4039-8001-2
1. Caribbean Area—Foreign relations—1945- 2. Globalization.3. Caribbean Commu-
nity. I. Title.
F2183.B63 2007
327.729—dc22 2007021800
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Scribe Inc.
First edition: January 2008
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
1 Introduction: Global Changes, Foreign Policy,
and the Study of Small States 1
2 Political-Security Interests 25
3 Economic and Social Interests 55
4 Strategic Linkages 89
5 Diplomatic Interests and Linkages 127
6 The Foreign Policy Decision Environment 167
7 The Conduct and Management
of Caricom Foreign Policy 203
8 A Brief Evaluation 231
Notes 235
References 261
Index 271
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Illustrations
Figures
6.1 The Caricom decision-making environment 169
7.1 Structure of the Jamaican foreign ministry 205
Tables
1.1 Caricom countries, basic data 16
1.2 Major aspects of English-speaking Caribbean foreign policy 20
1.3 Major aspects of Suriname’s foreign policy 21
1.4 Major aspects of Haiti’s foreign policy 22
3.1 Economic and social indicators for Caricom countries 58
3.2 Caricom historical trade with selected
partners, exports (percentages) 61
3.3 Caricom historical trade with selected
partners, imports (percentages) 63
3.4 Net receipts, private and public, to the independent
Caricom nations, and main bilateral and
multilateral contributors (US$ million) 66
3.5 Comparison of U.S. imports under two preferential schemes:
Caribbean Basin Recovery Act (CBERA) and Generalized
System of Preferences (GSP), 1984–2005 (dollars in thousands) 77
3.6 U.S. merchandise trade balance with Central
American and Caribbean countries, 2000–2004 78
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viii • Illustrations
3.7 U.S. imports from CBERA countries under selected
import programs (percentage of the total imported) 79
3.8 Trade between the European Union and the
African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) Group 85
3.9 Total Caricom to EU-15 trade in goods (million euro) 85
4.1 U.S. military assistance to Caricom: Foreign military
sales and Military Assistance Program (dollars in thousands) 91
4.2 U.S. commercial exports to Caricom licensed
under Arms Export Control Act (dollars in thousands) 92
4.3 U.S. military assistance to Caricom:
IMET Program (dollars in thousands) 93
4.4 Caricom adherence to key international security
and security-related conventions as of 2007 104
4.5 Caricom trade with developing regions (percentages) 113
4.6 Share of intra-Caricom/intra-OECS trade in total trade (percentage) 117
4.7 Foreign direct investment gross inflows to
Caricom countries, 1970–2004 (US$ million) 124
5.1 Caricom diplomatic missions, ca. 2005 131
5.2 Main intergovernmental and regional
organizations hosted by Caricom states 142
5.3 Organizational memberships of Caricom states (number), 2006 145
5.4 Caricom staff, office holding in the
UN General Assembly, 1962–2007 147
5.5 Absences of Caricom states in the UN General Assembly 150
5.6 Cold war voting coincidence of Caricom
countries with the United States and USSR 163
5.7 Voting agreement with the United States 164
6.1 Participation of Caricom NGOs in
selected international conferences 191
7.1 Size of Caricom UN and Washington missions, 2006–2007 221
7.2 Number of female diplomats at Caricom missions at the United
Nations and embassies in Washington, D.C., 2006–2007 225
7.3 Female permanent secretaries (foreign affairs) and
ambassadors for four-year period, 2000–2004 226
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Acknowledgments
This book is written with the aim of addressing the following: a third of the world’s territo-
ries have populations below ten million in 2007; the international relations literature has
consistently neglected these smaller states of the world, unless they create problems—secu-
rity problems in particular—for the great powers; research on very small states has been
neglected; the international relations literature, and even foreign policy research, has tended
to take theoretical shortcuts that are short on descriptivedetail; the area studies literature, as
well as global south analyses, have, on the other hand, tended to be long on description and
short on or devoid of theory; foreign policy is public policy, and in an era when many for-
eign offices are retooling to meet the demands of globalization, attention should be paid by
foreign policy researchers to the policy and planning aspects of the field.
The book takes the same approach as an earlier work, The Caribbean in World Affairs,
published in 1989. Much has happened in the world since then, and this book seeks to assess
the ways in which Caribbean nations have coped with global and regional change. For read-
ers unfamiliar with the region under study, a few explanatory notes are in order concerning
the names of countries. Antigua and Barbuda is the full name of the country that is some-
times referred to in the book simply as Antigua. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Saint
Kitts and Nevis are the full names of islands that in the book are often abbreviated to St. Vin-
cent and St. Kitts-Nevis, names that are familiarly used in the Caribbean. Grenada’s full
name is Grenada and the Grenadines (that is, it includes the dependencies of Carriacou and
Petit Martinique), but the abbreviated and more familiar “Grenada” is used here. Trinidad
and Tobago is occasionally abbreviated to Trinidad in the book for purely stylistic reasons,
and finally, the formal spelling of Suriname, not the familiar Surinam, is used for the former
Dutch Guiana.
Some of the research for this book was conducted under two grants from the Research
Foundation of the City University of New York. In my research on Caribbean foreign policy,
conducted over decades and reflected in this book, I am indebted to too many people to
name most individually. I will simply thank all my foreign service friends throughout the
region, and single out Marina Valere, now Trinidad and Tobago’s ambassador to the United
States, and Patrick Edwards, the country’s recently appointed ambassador to Uganda and
former ambassador to Nigeria, for their consistent and unwavering support over the years.
The late Festus Brotherson, Guyanese academic and also one of the country’s honorary con-
suls, was also a source of insight and information about Guyana over the years. Thanks also
to Taina Glaude, who works in the Treaty Section of the United Nations, for finding rele-
vant information as needed. I also wish to acknowledge the great help given by my research