The Foundations of Caribbean Politics

Probably the two main concepts around which studies of the historical Caribbean have been organized are nationalism and the plantation. The former stresses an ongoing struggle for emergence on the part of a people for self-government, identity and empowerment. The latter emphasises the plantation as the crucible out of which Caribbean societies have been conditioned and the legacy of slavery, sugar and colonialism. This study accepts these two principal organising concepts but utilises them against the main concerns that are current: the problems of democratisation, the effectiveness of civil society, the constraints and opportunities of small size, the appropriate role of the state, and the search by Caribbean people for a better life or, at least, another life abroad.