Cuba, From Fidel to Raúl and Beyond

By Vegard Bye

This book analyzes the economic reforms and political adjustments that took place in Cuba during the era of Raúl Castro’s leadership and its immediate aftermath, the first year of his successor, Miguel Díaz-Canel. Faced with economic challenges and a political crisis of legitimacy now that the Castro brothers are no longer in power, the Cuban Revolution finds itself at another critical juncture, confronted with the loss of Latin American allies and a more hostile and implacable US administration.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Release date: Jul 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9783030218065

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© The Author(s) 2020

Vegard ByeCuba, From Fidel to Raúl and BeyondStudies of the Americashttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21806-5_1

1. Introduction

Vegard Bye¹  

(1)

Scanteam a.s., Oslo, Norway

Vegard Bye

Email: [e-mail]

Keywords

Fidel CastroRaúl CastroTransformationEconomic pluralismPolitical pluralismReform agenda

The Setting

On 19 April 2018, Raúl Castro stepped down as Cuba’s president after ten years—two constitutional periods—in this position, thus formally finalising 59 years of Castro rule in Cuba. Miguel Díaz-Canel, a civilian party apparatchik born after the 1959 Revolution, was chosen to lead the country into an unknown future. His first promise was one of continuity. The new millennium seems not yet to have dawned upon Havana, still looking nostalgically back on its 500 years history which it is set to celebrate in 2019.

Ten months into his tenure, the first post-Castro president was able to get a new Constitution approved in a referendum, although with a much narrower majority than the country has been used to and its legitimacy thoroughly questioned by most neighbours. The situation in Cuba’s close ally Venezuela, with the US driving for regime change supported by most of Latin America, is leading Cuba to its most serious isolation and crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The general view of most observers has been that Raúl Castro carried out more fundamental reforms in Cuba after taking over from big brother Fidel, than anything that had ever occurred since the Revolution defined its Marxist-Leninist character in the early 1960s (see Mesa-Lago 2013). Yet, Raúl Castro stated from the outset that the objective is to guarantee the continuation and irreversibility of socialism. The same was said when the presidency was left to Díaz-Canel ten years later. Looking beyond rhetoric, the question we intend to discuss in this book is what these reforms consisted of in terms of economic and political change, and in which direction they have set Cuba in the final phase of its Castro era, and how they are followed up in the post-Castro era.

Cuba has since January 1959 been a unique country, in the Americas and globally. With its iconic Revolution, masterminded and led for almost 50 years by one of the most charismatic political leaders of the twentieth century, Fidel Castro Ruz, accompanied by comrade-in-arms Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara until his death. This small island nation of around 11 million inhabitants has been the centre of attention for students of socialism and communism; anti-imperialism and national liberation; US-Soviet Cold War geostrategic rivalry and the danger of nuclear war; human rights discussions of economic, social and cultural rights versus civil-political rights; leftist versus rightist recipes for development strategies. Cuba simply had it all.

So completely was this country and its Revolution associated with its towering leader, that nobody could imagine it would survive without Fidel at the helm. Then, on 31 July 2006, the Cuban state television announced that Fidel (then 80) was to undergo intestinal surgery, forcing him on a preliminary basis to leave all commanding positions in the Communist Party, the Armed Forces and the Government to his brother and second-in-command, Raúl Castro Ruz (then 75). News desks all over the world started to speculate: was this finally the end of El Comandante as well as his revolution, both having been written off so many times? Was it at all conceivable that Cuba, on its knees after the collapse of its Soviet benefactor, would survive without Fidel? We had been reminded about his omnipotence five years earlier, when Fidel had fainted on the podium, and insisted that he be kept awake during the surgery he had to undergo to treat some quite serious knee injuries, so as to make sure he could keep control on the same 24/7 basis he was used to. Afterwards he cracked a joke: I simply pretended to die, in order to observe how my own funeral would look like.

Then, in a letter dated 18 February 2008, Fidel Castro announced that he would not accept the positions of President of the Council of State and Commander-in-Chief at the upcoming National Assembly meeting. He stated that his health was a primary reason for his decision, remarking that It would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total devotion, that I am not in a physical condition to offer.¹ On 24 February 2008, the National Assembly of People’s Power unanimously voted Raúl as president. Describing his brother as ‘not substitutable’, Raúl proposed that Fidel continue to be consulted on matters of great importance, a motion unanimously approved by the 597 National Assembly members.

In reality, after that July evening in 2006, Raúl was Cuba’s undisputed leader, although he was only formalised as president by the National Assembly in 2008, and as First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party at the Party Congress in 2011. The first and provisional transfer of power took place in a typically informal fidelista manner: right before he was hospitalised with unknown outcome, he left a handwritten message where he ‘provisionally’ delegated all his functions as head of state, of the armed forces and of the Communist Party to his formally designated deputy, Raúl Castro. Neither the National Assembly nor the Politburo of the Party met. Yet, this was in accordance with Article 94 of the Cuban Constitution, stipulating the transfer of responsibilities to the deputy in the case that the President of the Council of State is absent or dies.

When Raúl took over, many analysts saw this as an example of a dynastic succession within the family, comparing it to North Korea (the Kim family), Nicaragua (Somoza), Haiti (Duvalier). This was vehemently denied by the Cuban leadership, claiming that Raúl had been appointed to the deputy position exclusively based on the merits he earned during the guerrilla struggle and in his functions within the party, state and military establishment after the Revolution. In Fidel’s address to the National Assembly in December 2007, he stated as if to respond to any accusations about a family succession: In the Proclamation I signed on 31 July 2006, none of you ever saw any act of nepotism.

It was generally expected that Raúl, having lived in his big brother’s shadow during their entire life, would simply carry on Fidel’s mode of rule. It did not take long, however, before he proved most forecasters wrong. There were early signs that Raúl would set the country on a different track. The first signal came in his speech on the day of the Revolution (26 July) in 2007, when he recognised serious socio-economic problems and promised structural and conceptual reforms. He warned, however, that everything cannot be resolved immediately [and that] you should not expect spectacular solutions.² In a badly hidden criticism of his brother’s exaggerated lust for control of every aspect of the Cuban citizens’ life, he removed a number of what he called ‘unnecessary restrictions’: allowing access for his countrymen to tourist hotels, Internet, DVD players, significantly allowing ordinary Cubans to establish cell phone accounts, and to rent cars—all in reality limited to those with access to hard currency.

Only four days after Raúl formally took over as Cuba’s president, on 28 February 2008, Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque went to the UN Headquarters in New York to sign the two basic human rights treaties that, together with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, conform the International Bill of Human Rights: The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESC). A couple of months earlier, Pérez had announced that Cuba would ratify these two covenants by March 2008.³ Until now, ratification has never taken place, nor has any such intention meanwhile been expressed.

In March 2009, Raúl made a sudden decision to fire some of the country’s most prominent young leaders, those ‘young Talibans’ who had been handpicked by Fidel to take over after the revolutionary generation would step down. These included vice president and expected presidential candidate Carlos Lage, foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque and other young leaders who had surrounded the now retired commander-in-chief, along with another ten ministers. They were all dismissed in a major cabinet sweep, in which Raúl filled most ministerial positions with his military confidants. By 2012, Raúl had substituted a total of 32 ministers, which means that the country’s entire executive leadership underneath the overarching Communist Party leadership had been changed from Fidel to Raúl. The militarisation of the ministry offices, however, turned out to be a preliminary solution: by 2016, only two line ministries in addition to Defence and the Interior were headed by military officers.

Raúl soon recognised the seriousness of Cuba’s economic situation. In 2010, in a speech to a conference of the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC), he warned of the danger that the Revolution could end up in deep crisis if the workers did not assume their responsibility for the necessary economic reforms. In his speech to the National Assembly in December 2010, he went on to state: Either we rectify, or the time is up for continuing to balance on the border of the abyss; we sink, and we will sink the efforts of entire generations.⁴

The reform agenda was set out in the Guidelines, ‘Lineamientos’ , approved by the 6th Communist Party Congress in April 2011, for the necessary ‘updating’ (‘actualización’ ) of the socialist socio-economic model (explicit economic reforms and implicit political adaptations). A second decisive decision-making moment was assumed to be the 7th Party Congress in 2016.

This set the stage for the general economic reform programme—although the term ‘reform’ was not used—launched by the 6th Party Congress. Although political reforms were ruled out, essential structural changes have taken place that also implies deep transformations of Cuba’s polity. This goes for the political as well as the economic arena, in a country in which socialism got more doctrinarian than anywhere else (with the possible exception of North Korea) when it comes to abolition of the private sector (ref. the 1968 ofensiva revolucionara, see Szulc 1986).

Until November 2016, Fidel was still around, probably waging considerable influence behind the scenes, but he did so without stopping Raúl from setting Cuba on a very different course compared to his own whilst still keeping socialism or Marxism-Leninism as the official ideology. Then, only 14 months before Raúl was scheduled to leave the presidency, the historic commander-in-chief passed away, staging a national mourning process and myth-building celebration of his achievements in national media and public places that seemed to have no end.

And here we come to the issues analysed in this book regarding the Cuban reform process during Raúl Castro’s period of government (counted by his formal presidential period from February 2008⁵ to April 2018), and in what direction his successor Díaz-Canel started off:

Given Raúl’s focus on economic measures, his intention of keeping the political structure in place, but at the same time observing the significant political implications of the transformations taking place, the key question of this book is therefore the following: Where is Cuba going? More specifically, is a widening of economic pluralism taking place in such a way that it may lead to increasing political pluralism and de-concentration of power? Or, alternatively, will changes in the political and power structure accelerate or slow down economic reforms?

The Problem of Studying Politics in Cuba

The object of this study is the reforms proposed and implemented in Cuba during the ten years of Raúl Castro’s presidency (2008–2018), and how they seem to be followed up by the new generation of leaders led by Miguel Díaz-Canel. The reforms have focused on economic measures; Raúl seems to have been quite intent on keeping the political structure in place. Yet, many of the reforms have had a political character, or at least there have been obvious political implications of the economic reforms.

The book is built on a theoretical understanding of the relationship between economic and political transformations. Theories of democratic transition (neoliberal vs. social democratic) have been held up against a number of other theories for deep social transformations in other directions, with particular emphasis on post-communist processes (ref. Bye 2018).

However, studying the Cuban political system represents some quite peculiar challenges. One of them concerns the lack of information; in Cuba, there is a dearth of primary independent sources about these reforms. Another challenge concerns the nature of the Cuban discussion about political and economic issues; there is no native Political Science tradition that can provide this study with analytical terms and useful theories.

Armando Chaguaceda, an exiled Cuban social scientist wrote, recalling what his M.A. thesis advisor once told him about the study of the Cuban power elite: Power does not like to be studied. He goes on to say: the absence of substantial studies and the lack of public access to such key issues […] maintain almost all production in the field at a superficial level (Chaguaceda 2014).

The peculiarities for studying political power in Cuba, given the lack of a native research tradition with relevant theories, evidently represent a serious method and design problem for the present study.

The Canadian political scientist and Cuba watcher Yvon Grenier (2016) calls it a clear case of what Hegel called the ‘cunning of history’, that the triumph of the Cuban revolution led to the end of the academic discipline that critically examines the use of power in society: political science.

A fellow Canadian Cuba watcher, economist Archibald Ritter, highlights some of the implications of this situation:

One consequence of the absence of the discipline of Political Science in Cuba is that we have only a vague idea of how Cuba’s government actually functions. Who within the Politbureau and Central Committee of the party actually makes decisions? To what extent and how do pressures from the mass organizations actually affect decision-making, or is the flow of influence always from top to bottom rather than the reverse? What role do the large conglomerate enterprises that straddle the internationalized dollar economy and the peso economy play in the process of policy-formulation? Is the National Assembly simply an empty shell that unanimously passes prodigious amounts of legislation in exceedingly short periods of time—as appears to be the case? One is left with a feeling that the real political system is one of black boxes within black boxes linked in various ways by invisible wires and tubes. (Ritter 2013)

Interplay Between Economic and Political Variables

Our key concern here is the relationship between changes in the economic and political arenas: whether economic pluralism may lead to increasing political pluralism, or whether a loosening of power concentration could lead to more economic pluralism. There may be theoretical and empirical support for both causal correlations, with Lipset (1960) providing the most classical argument for the former hypothesis while Kornai (1992) in his study of the USSR and East European transformations offers the alternative paradigm.

In order to organise this discussion, we have constructed a simple 2 × 2 matrix, illustrating economic transformations along the y axis and political transformations along the x axis. On both axes, we distinguish between inclusive and exclusive institutions.

We borrow the concept inclusive economic institutions from Acemoglu and Robinson (A&R) (2012: 73–87): those that allow and encourage participation by the great mass of people in economic activities that make best use of their talents and skills and that enable individuals to make the choices they wish. What we mean by political inclusiveness here is more or less synonymous with an active and open democracy, for instance, understood in the same way as the four dimensions outlined by Stokke and Törnquist (2013) in their discussion of transformative democratic politics (more developed in our Scenario 3, Chap. 9).⁶ There are obviously strong synergies between economic and political inclusiveness.

Limiting the matrix to two dimensions is a great simplification of reality. A more complex matrix could be similar to the three-dimensional (nine-box) model proposed by Pettman (2010: 12—Fig. 1.1), which distinguishes between a politico-strategic dimension (government), a politico-economic dimension (economy), and a third: politico-civic dimension (civil society).⁷ He is also arguing for a fourth: a politico-cultural dimension. On each of these dimensions, Pettman distinguishes between a realist, a rationalist and a revolutionary approach, which he qualifies respectively (and extremely normatively) as ‘bad’, ‘calculating’ and ‘good’.

../images/479684_1_En_1_Chapter/479684_1_En_1_Fig1_HTML.png

Fig. 1.1

Politics-Economics Correlation Matrix: Transformation options for the Raúl Castro era reforms

Even the simpler 2 × 2 matrix will, in my view, allow us to ask more pointed questions and to analyse the direction and correlation of changes that may be taking place in Cuba. Civil society is here discussed as part of the political dimension, and socio-cultural and other important dimensions will anyway be part of the discussion.

Contemporary Cuba may be described by the terms that characterise cell c in the matrix: a political economy marked by institutions that are politically and economically exclusive.

When we ask the question where Cuba is going, it follows that our concern is the movements between these cells, and the driving forces and inter-relations behind those movements. This matrix should not be understood as a static description of institutions but a dynamic model where we are looking for possible routes: a roadmap.

The matrix indicates that Cuba may go in several possible directions:

1.

Economics only or economics first route (from cell c to cell b): From the present situation, in which both the political and economic institutions in Cuba are exclusive, to a situation in which the economy is reformed towards more inclusive institutions, whereas the political institutions remain exclusive.

2.

Economics leading to politics route (from cell c, via b to cell a): A second possible scenario is that Raúl gets his economic reforms, but that increasing inclusivity in the economic realm have implications for the political institutions of the country and that they, too, are pulled in an inclusive direction.

3.

Politics only (from cell c to cell d): This means that political institutions are rendered more inclusive, whereas the economic institutions continue to be exclusive.

4.

Politics first or politics leading to economics route (from cell c to cell d and then onwards to cell a).

5.

The fast track (from cell c directly to cell a): If political and economic reform is hard to disassociate, one might think of a move that makes both the political and the economic institutions in Cuba more inclusive together.

6.

Finally, there is also a sixth possible course. This is the course that Raúl Castro wants to avoid most of all. Thus, we cannot exclude the possibility of state failure or collapse—like the main sponsor for many years, the USSR, experienced in 1990. This outcome can be illustrated by a Cuban move from cell c and out of the matrix altogether.

These potential routes, as well as the four cells, are no more than ideal-typical cases. As we shall see, the most probable routes will represent a combination of these cases, for instance, routes 2 and 4.

Research Strategy

We have drawn up a theoretical and comparative-empirical framework for the study of the Cuban transformation process, permitting us to extract a series of conceptual tools to be applied in the discussion of the research questions. This was the basis for the two-tier research strategy we have proposed as response to the method and design problem signalled above: using this very simple 2 × 2 roadmap matrix as an organising tool for the theoretical and empirical discussion of transformation options available for Cuba, together with the formulation of nine transformative challenges with their respective hypotheses and indicators. With these instruments in mind, we have used Linz and Stepan’s (1996) five arenas of a consolidated democracy as an organising framework for the discussion of ongoing reforms: (i) an institutionalised economic society; (ii) a free and lively civil society; (iii) a relatively autonomous political society; (iv) rule of law to ensure legal guarantees for citizens’ freedoms and independent associational life; (v) a state bureaucracy that is usable by the new democratic government.⁸ Our empirical study has basically been organised according to these arenas, with Chaps. 2 and 3 dedicated to the evolving economic arena and Chaps. 6, 7 and 8 to the political arena with ‘sub-arenas’ (ii)–(v) handled separately. Additionally, Chap. 4 discusses political implications of changes on the economic arena, while Chap. 5 deals with an additional arena partly left out by Linz and Stepan: the international arena.

The discussion is partly based on officially recognised challenges as formulated in policy documents and official statements, mostly regarding economic and socio-economic issues, plus what follows from the US embargo/blockade. These officially recognised challenges are accompanied by other and more normative challenges derived from the theoretical literature and empirical experiences regarding post-totalitarian transition and transformation towards less authoritarian political systems. It is, therefore, emphasised that challenges based on the socio-economic reform agenda and the US embargo are in general explicitly recognised by the Government, while the challenges regarding political transformation (Chaps. 4, 6, 7 and 8) are more normatively formulated by the author, based on theoretical and comparative literature.

Summary of Main Reforms on Raúl Castro’s Watch

The Economic Situation at the Outset of the Reform Era

With the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the socialist economic system (COMECON) to which Cuba had belonged since the early 1960s, Cuba was thrown into an economic crisis that threatened the Cuban Revolution’s very survival. From 1989 to 1993, the GDP fell by an incredible 35%. Although there was a partial recovery towards the second part of the 1990s—the official figure for growth from 1993 to 2000 was set at 21%—the ‘Special Period’ of the 1990s represents a terrible memory for most Cubans. The state budget deficit in 1993 was 33.5% of GDP, reduced to 2.4% in 2000 (figures quoted by Pérez Villanueva 2010: 18). The new special relationship offered by Venezuela from the turn of the century gave Cuba a certain relief, resulting in a partial recovery of its economic growth (increasing from 2% in 2000 to around 12% in 2005 and 2006, then falling again to under 2% in 2009—figures provided by ONEI [Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información— Cuba’s Bureau of Statistics], various years). This relative recovery must be seen against the backdrop of the terrible crisis caused by the loss of privileged relations with the USSR.

From 1989, Cuba went through a tremendous process of production stagnation; in reality, a far-reaching de-industrialisation took place due to technological obsolescence, almost total lack of capital resources, and a chronic shortage of raw materials and fuel. Industry’s share of GDP fell from 28% in 1989 to 16% in 2010 (Mesa-Lago 2013: 106). Industrial production in 2011 was only 45% of the 1989 level, while food production was only two-thirds (De Miranda-Parrondo 2014: 44–45, based on ONEI statistics).

The de-capitalisation of the economy in the 1990s had far from been compensated at the outset of the Raúl reform era. The purchasing power of an average income fell dramatically, to about one-fourth of its rather sober 1989 level. Cuban state salaries could in no way meet people’s basic needs. A secondary consequence of this was that domestic demand was insufficient to stimulate production, while the quality of Cuban products presented no competitiveness in the international markets.

Foreign investments were carefully permitted, but were not forthcoming in any significant magnitude. Historically, Cuba’s pattern of international trade was characterised by its role as exporter of raw materials (with sugar as the predominant product) and importer of oil and industrial goods. This changed dramatically with the close-to elimination of the sugar industry, resulting in a chronic trade deficit, which was partly compensated by the surge in services (medical services plus tourism).

Foreign debt increased rapidly as a consequence of this pattern, although figures are considered very sensitive and therefore kept secret. The debt situation, and a tendency to postpone debt service payments and profit repatriation for foreign companies, created a distrust in the country’s liquidity and trustworthiness as a business partner, further aggravated by the fact that Cuba stayed outside of all multilateral and even regional credit institutions.

There was agreement, shared by Raúl himself, that the situation was so serious that the very survival of the Revolution was at stake, ref. his statement (December 2010) about balancing on the border of the abyss. This recognition was what provoked the reform measures that Raúl Castro initiated, formalised not least through the Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social, hereafter referred to as The Guidelines , approved by the 6th Party Congress in 2011.⁹

The Reform Agenda

Already before the 2011 Party Congress, some reforms had been approved under Raúl’s leadership, among them administrative measures and more or less structural reforms.¹⁰ Among the non-structural reforms featured the permission for Cubans to visit hotels and restaurants previously reserved for foreigners, the acquisition of electro-domestic goods and, additionally, the authorisation of private transport (taxis as well as other private transport of persons and goods). The first structural reform introduced in 2008 was the decision to lease out Cuba’s large extensions of idle land, through so-called usufructo . It was also in this period that a comprehensive campaign against corruption was initiated. According to Raúl, the corruption is today one of the principal enemies of the revolution, much more harmful than the subversive and interference activity of the US government […] The corruption is today equivalent to counter-revolution.¹¹ Raúl also introduced a series of measures to reduce social benefits; to make them more focalised towards those who really needed them (e.g. the 35% of the population assumed not to receive family remittances from abroad).

The Guidelines state very clearly that central planning and not the market forces would be kept as the overriding economic instrument in Cuba. State enterprises would continue to dominate, but companies running at a loss would be closed or transferred to non-state management.

The most important reform measures announced at the outset of the process were the following:¹²

1.

Significant state retreat in agriculture.

2.

Leasing (usufructo) of idle state-owned agricultural land.

3.

Gradual introduction of non-state wholesale markets, substituting the state-controlled acopios.

4.

Expansion of private work and layoffs from the state sector.

5.

Leasing out of small-scale businesses.

6.

Expansion of the cooperative sector.

7.

Reduced and more focalised social welfare.

8.

Permission to own mobile phones (allowed in Cuba only in 2008), combined with gradual opening of Internet access, in reality resulting in the end of the information monopoly.

9.

Opening of a real estate market.

10.

Lifting of migration restrictions.

11.

New regime for Direct Foreign Investment (not mentioned in Guidelines, but approved in 2014).

12.

Elimination of the dual monetary system (convertible and non-convertible currencies).

13.

Restrictions on time of service in top Party and State leadership positions (maximum two periods or ten years).

It has been claimed¹³ that Raúl in reality had four major points on his political agenda when he took office in 2008, in addition to the economic reforms: normalisation of relations with the Catholic Church, normalisation with the US, re-negotiation of the country’s foreign debt, and finally ratification of international human rights treaties. Normalisation with the Church came first, when he in 2010 negotiated with Cardinal Ortega the release of 75 political prisoners (the victims of the so-called ‘Black Spring’, imprisoned in 2003), thus preparing the ground for the visit of Pope Francis who in his turn helped prepare the ground for the normalisation process with President Obama. The latter was officially launched on 17 December 2014. The debt agreement with the Paris Club was reached in December 2015.¹⁴ What remained unmet among these points was the ratification of human rights treaties, in spite of the process he initiated in 2008.

How should one interpret Raúl’s reforms—is he a conservative or a reformist? Klepak (2012) suggests the following observation, which sounds reasonable; he is neither a conservative nor a reformer:

If Raúl feels that reform is necessary for the efficiency and progress of the Revolution, and for the furtherance of protection of its main goals, he will be interested in reform. If he feels that reform is dangerous for the survival or well-being of those goals, he is interested in conservatism. (Klepak 2012: 99)

These goals, Klepak adds, are basically the social gains of the Revolution (health, education, social security, etc.). He says nothing about the maintenance of power as a goal in and of itself. It is, however, difficult to avoid the suspicion that this goal lies behind everything that has happened as these reform measures have been tested in practice.

The reforms announced and initially implemented by Raúl Castro from 2008 were by most observers seen as the beginning of a significant economic transformation of the Cuban society. We will argue that these reform measures were met by a virtual counter-reform, particularly from 2016.

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Acemoglu, Daron, and James A. Robinson. 2012. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: Crown Publishing Group.

Bye, Vegard. 2018. The End of an Era or a New Start: Economic Reforms with Potential for Political Transformation in Cuba on Raúl Castro’s Watch (2008–2018). Oslo: University of Oslo (Dr. Philos dissertation). http://​hdl.​handle.​net/​10852/​66018.

Chaguaceda, Armando. 2014. House of Cards and Political Science in Cuba. Havana Times, 21.03.2014.

De Miranda-Parrondo, Mauricio. 2014. Current Problems in the Cuban Economy. In No More Free Lunch: Reflections on the Cuban Economic Reform Process and Challenges for Transformation, ed. Claes Brundenius and Ricardo Torres Pérez. New York: Springer.

Fukuyama, Francis. 2011. The Origins of Political Order. London: Profile Books.

Grenier, Yvon. 2016. Temas and Anathemas: Depoliticization and Newspeak in Cuba’s Social Sciences and Humanities. Revista Mexicana de Análisis Político y Administración Pública V (2, julio–diciembre): 155–182.

Klepak, Hal. 2012. Raúl Castro and Cuba: A Military Story. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Crossref

Kornai, János. 1992. The Socialist System: The Political Economy of Communism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Crossref

Linz, Juan J., and Alfred Stepan. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Lipset, Seymor Martin. 1960. Political Man. The Social Bases of Politics. New York: Doubleday & Company.

Mesa-Lago, Carmelo. 2013. Cuba en la era de Raúl Castro. Reformas económico-sociales y sus efectos. Madrid: Editorial Colibrí.

Pérez Villanueva, Omar Everleny. 2010. Cinquenta anos de la economía cubana. Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales.

Pettman, Ralph. 2010. World Affairs: An Analytical Overview. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Company.Crossref

Ritter, Archibald. 2013. Political Science: When will Cuban Universities Join the World?. On his Blog thecubaneconomy.com, 17.6.13. https://​thecubaneconomy.​com/​articles/​2013/​06/​political-science-when-will-cuban-universities-join-the-world/​.​

Stokke, Kristan, and Olle Törnquist. 2013. Transformative Democratic Politics. In Democratization in the Global South. The Importance of Transformative Politics, ed. Kristan Stokke and Olle Törnquist. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Crossref

Szulc, Tad. 1986. A Critical Portrait: Fidel. New York: Avon Books.

Footnotes

1

Fidel Castro announces retirement. BBC News. 19 February 2008. Retrieved 19.02.08. (S/E)

2

Granma, 27.07.07.

3

Signature of a human rights treaty does not constitutionally convert it to national law, only ratification by the country’s legislative body makes it part of the law of the land.

4

El País, 19.12.10.

5

Some elements even from his informal execution of presidential authority starting in 2016 will also be included.

6

The contradiction of inclusiveness in A&R’s model is extractiveness, linked to the term ‘exploitation’ of the population at large by the elite. This does not really suit the political economy of Cuba. We will rather use the term ‘exclusiveness’ as the contradiction of inclusiveness, on the economic as well as the political dimension. We see vast problems by using the present-day US as a prototype of inclusive economic and political institutions, as done by Acemoglu and Robinson. One could rather find inspiration for this combination in what Fukuyama (2011) calls the way to Denmark (i.e. some kind of a Nordic model).

7

Pettman argues (p. 10) that all three dimensions […] are political, since politics is ubiquitous. Politics is the species-specific propensity to get one’s own way, whether individually, collectively, or commonly. ‘Politicking’ is manifest in formalised systems of government or it can remain relatively informal. Either way, it occurs at every level of human society, be it in the family, the small group, the tribe, the institution, the state or the world at large. As a consequence, politics is used here with a hyphen throughout, as in politico-strategic, -economic and -social.

8

On purpose, we have changed the order of these five arenas compared to the order in which Linz and Stepan presented them.

9

http://​www.​granma.​cu/​file/​pdf/​PCC/​6congreso/​Resolución-Sobre-los-Lineamientos-de-la-Pol%C3%ADtica-Económica-y-Social-del-Partido-y-la-Revolución.​pdf.

10

In the following, we use Mesa-Lago’s (2013: 277–278, Table 3) distinction between administrative changes, non-structural reforms and structural reforms.

11

Granma, 23.12.2011.

12

The selection of the most important reform issues is mostly based on Mesa-Lago (2013).

13

This is the appreciation of the two directors of Cuba Posible , previously Espacio Laical, Roberto Veiga and Leonel Gonzales (interviewed repeatedly in Havana).

14

Cuba and the Paris Club of creditors agreed in December 2015 on a pardon of 11.1 billion USD of the country’s 13.7 billion USD debt, with Cuba committing to clear the remaining 2.6 billion USD of debt in arrears over an 18-year period. http://​www.​clubdeparis.​org/​en/​communications/​press-release/​agreement-on-the-debt-between-cuba-and-the-group-of-creditors-of-cuba.

© The Author(s) 2020

Vegard ByeCuba, From Fidel to Raúl and BeyondStudies of the Americashttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21806-5_2

2. Retreat of State as Economic Actor?

Vegard Bye¹  

(1)

Scanteam a.s., Oslo, Norway

Vegard Bye

Email: [e-mail]

Keywords

Agricultural reformEconomic crisisCounter-reformSelf-employment

In this chapter, we will address two different economic aspects of the Cuban reform process: first the agricultural sector, and then the more general modifications in the division of work between state and non-state sectors.

In agriculture, it was commonly supposed that a significant retreat of the state would be a necessary measure for increased food production, in order to satisfy domestic demand as well as to reduce convertible currency expenses on food import. In the economy at large, the reforms were expected to loosen state control and dominance of the economy, leading to an increasing space for the non-state economy—both aiming at sustained economic growth and employment generation.

A New Agrarian Reform?

Some Baseline Notes on Cuban Agriculture

The goal of the reform Guidelines to achieve that this sector (agriculture) will progressively contribute to the country’s balance of payments, in order to cease being a net importer of food, can be traced all the way back to the early days of the Cuban Revolution. In 1957, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) classified Cuba as the major agricultural export country in Latin America relative to its population, while importing about 30% of its