BY: WILLIAM I. ROBINSON *   

(If you wish to read the full paper....)

There has been a change in U.S. policy towards Cuba in recent years to what policymakers refer to as "democracy promotion." This change reflects a broader reorientation in U.S. policy towards the Third World, from backing authoritarian regimes to promoting "democracy" (polyarchy).
This shift may be conceived theoretically, in the Gramscian sense, as signalling new forms of transnational control accompanying the rise of global capitalism. Specifically, behind this shift is an effort to replace coercive means of social control with consensual ones in the South within a highly stratified international system, in which the U.S. plays a leadership role on behalf of an emergent transnational hegemonic configuration.
U.S. "democracy promotion" in the Third World has major implications for international relations, and particularly, for North-South relations in the "new world order." What is emerging is a new political model of North-South relations for the 21st century.

Since the late 1980s, U.S. policymakers have argued that the basis of the long-running U.S. dispute ith Cuba is the lack of "democracy" in the Caribbean island nation. The Clinton administration has made it clear that its policy, including any eventual normalization of relations, will be based on democratization inside Cuba. Yet, from the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959 to the late 1980s, the U.S.-Cuba conflict was presented in Washington as a product of Cuba's "security threat," emanating from Cuba's foreign policy of active engagement in the international arena, including its support for Third World national liberation movements and its alliance with the now defunct Soviet bloc. Therefore, the current assertion in Washington that the dispute is over democracy represents a little-perceived yet very significant change in the U.S. policy towards Cuba.
This shift in policy, from an emphasis on external "security" factors conditioning U.S.-Cuban relations, to the emphasis on internal factors - that is, on Cuba's internal political system - is important on two accounts:
First, it is central to an analysis of current U.S.-Cuba relations and to prognostication on how these relations will unfold in the coming years.
Second, it reflects an essential change in U.S. foreign policy that dates back to the 1970s, came to fruition in the 1980s, is now being consolidated, and promises to play a major role in U.S. foreign policy in the "new world order."
This change has been described by policymakers, scholars and journalists, as a shift towards "democracy promotion." The State Department now defines "democracy promotion" as one of the three basic planks of U.S. foreign policy, along with the promotion of "free markets" and the maintenance of a U.S. military capacity around the world.

"Support for democracy," declares one State Department policy document, "is becoming the new organizing principle for American foreign policy." This change is largely unexplored.
Many have applauded "democracy promotion," with a surprising shallowness in theoretical analysis, as a positive and long-overdue change for the better in U.S. policy. Those who have opposed U.S. intervention abroad, while more skeptical regarding U.S. intentions, have tended to view "democracy promotion" as merely a continuation, under new rhetoric, of the same U.S. interventionism of the past. In fact, both positions are off the mark, and reflect the failure to appreciate the profound changes at every level that are accompanying the rise of global capitalism, including changes in international political relations and transnational class formation.

I will present a theoretical argument in this paper which runs contrary to conventional wisdom and mainstream thinking on U.S. "democracy promotion," yet one which, I believe, will elucidate not only the context in which U.S. Cuban relations will unfold into the 21st century, but also the general dynamic of U.S. foreign policy in the "new world order." This paper is divided into five parts.

• First, I will discuss in historic perspective the shift to what policymakers describe as "democracy promotion."
  
• Second, I will give brief theoretical treatment to the concepts of democracy, and define exactly what U.S. policymakers mean when they say they are promoting "democracy" in Cuba and elsewhere.
  
• Third, I will provide an explanation for this shift.
  
• Fourth, I will analyze the concrete mechanisms, in particular, "political aid" programs, through which this shift is taking place.
  
• Finally, I will link this analysis and the theoretical discussion to the case of Cuba and speculate on how U.S.-Cuban relations might unfold.

It must be stressed that space limitations preclude a full exploration of the theoretical and analytical issues at hand. What follows is by necessity a simplification of complex issues and concepts.

* - William I. Robinson is a Research Associate at the Center for International Studies of the Central American University in Managua, Nicaragua, and Instructor in Sociology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, USA. This article is a modified version of a paper presented by Dr. Robinson at the Conference on Democracy and the U.S.-Cuban Dispute, held in Havana, Cuba, in April 1994 under the joint sponsorship of the Centro de Estudios sobre America (Havana) and CRIES (Managua). Robinson is author of several books an articles on U.S. policy towards the Third World and North-South relations, including A Faustian Bargain: U.S. Intervention in the Nicaraguan Elections and American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992). The themes raised in this paper are explored at greater length in Robinson's forthcoming book, Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, U.S. Intervention, Global Society and Hegemony (Cambridge University Press). Direct all correspondence to: Department of Sociology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, N.M. 87131.