The Association of the Study of the Cuban Economy is hosting its Annual Conference 25-27 July, 2019 in Miami, Florida. I have provided more information HERE: Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy Annual Conference: "Cuba - Growth or Decline? Is the Revolution Dead?".
I will be presenting the results of a collaboration between Flora Sapio (Università degli Studi di Napoli “Orientale” (Italy)), James Korman (Penn State School of International Affairs MIA 2019), and myself. Entitled "The Democratic Constitution of Illiberal States—An Empirical Approach to Theorizing Popular Participation, Representation and Constitutional Reform in Cuba," it evaluates some empirical evidence of the scope and character of informal engagement in the political process in Cuba, in the shadow of the formal structures of political engagement being developed since 2011. The paper will be published in Vol. 34 of the Emory International Law Review and the pre-publication version may be accessed in SSRN HERE.
Of course, the usual caveats apply. This study was not grounded in the premises and principles of democratic participation at the foundation of the organization of liberal democratic states. However one understands the data, there is nothing here that suggests either a transition to (liberal) democracy, nor is there a suggestion of comparability to the standards of liberal democratic societies. The object of comparison are the pretensions and theoretical claims that are indigenous to the Marxist Leninist political model under which these expressions are not meant to exist. And the object is to suggest the way in which trajectories of (still undertheorized) practices going back to the revolutionary (military) vanguard government of 1959-1976, may be producing either changes to the possibilities of mass engagement within the quite conceptually abstract theory of emerging Cuban Leninism, or whether it is meant as theatre to amuse the left in liberal democratic states on which the Cuban vanguard is dependent for the (economic) survival of the state.
Of course, the usual caveats apply. This study was not grounded in the premises and principles of democratic participation at the foundation of the organization of liberal democratic states. However one understands the data, there is nothing here that suggests either a transition to (liberal) democracy, nor is there a suggestion of comparability to the standards of liberal democratic societies. The object of comparison are the pretensions and theoretical claims that are indigenous to the Marxist Leninist political model under which these expressions are not meant to exist. And the object is to suggest the way in which trajectories of (still undertheorized) practices going back to the revolutionary (military) vanguard government of 1959-1976, may be producing either changes to the possibilities of mass engagement within the quite conceptually abstract theory of emerging Cuban Leninism, or whether it is meant as theatre to amuse the left in liberal democratic states on which the Cuban vanguard is dependent for the (economic) survival of the state.
The presentation is part of a great panel on Cuba's 2019 Constitution (Rogelio de la Torre, organizer) and includes:
Larry Catá Backer, Penn State University, "Popular Participation in the Constitution of the Illiberal State—An Empirical Study of Popular Engagement and Constitutional Reform in Cuba and the Contours of Cuban Socialist Democracy 2.0"The PowerPoints of our presentaiton follows:
Jose Gabilondo, Florida International University Law School, "Cuba's Civil Society in Conflict: Consitutional Debates About Same-Sex Marriage"
Boris González Arenas, Miembro de la Mesa de Unidad de Acción Democrática y colaborador de Diario de Cuba, "El castrismo y las regulaciones que lo propician"
Discussants: Jorge Esquirol, Florida International University Law School; Rafael Andrés Velázquez Pérez, Universidad de Holguín y Universidad de Vigo; Manuel Cuesta Morúa, Partido Arco Progresista y Miembro de la Mesa de Unidad de Acción Democrática
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e Democratic Constitution of Illiberal States—An Empirical Approach to Theorizing Popular Participation, Representation and Constitutional Reform in Cuba
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