The Political Economy of Caribbean Development

Studies of the global political economy have rarely engaged with development in the Caribbean, the thought of its indigenous intellectuals, or the non-sovereign territories of the region. Matthew Bishop compares the development of the independent English-speaking islands of St Lucia and St Vincent and their non-sovereign French neighbours, Martinique and Guadeloupe. By explaining how distinctive patterns of British and French colonialism and decolonisation came to bear on them, he investigates how very different patterns of development have subsequently ensued, often with startling consequences in this era of globalization and crisis. By engaging with the empirical reality of the Caribbean, his study sheds light on a range of wider debates relating to development, indigenous thought, post-colonial sovereignty, small states, and the contemporary evolution of the global political economy.

Matthew Louis Bishop is Lecturer in International Relations at the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago. He holds an honorary fellowship from the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI), in the UK, and has been a visiting fellow at KITLV in the Netherlands. He is also the co-author, with Jean Grugel, of Democratization: A Critical Introduction (2013).

1. Introduction
PART I: ENDURING STRUCTURES, UNDERSTANDING AGENCY
2. The Caribbean: A Global History
3. The Rise and Fall of Caribbean Development Theory
4. Beyond the Impasse: Towards a New Political Economy of Development
PART II: THE COMPARATIVE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF EASTERN CARIBBEAN DEVELOPMENT
5. Political Development
6. Economic Development
7. Social Development
PART III: CONCLUSIONS
8. Conclusion: The Caribbean, Development and IPE