Guide to Citizens’ Rights and Responsibilities
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- Governments of the World A Global Guide to Citizens’ Rights and Responsibilities V O L U M E 3 ■ J A M A I C A
- Governments of the World: A Global Guide to Citizens’ Rights and Responsibilities
- LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
- G O V E R N M E N T S O F T H E W O R L D
- G O V E R N M E N T S O F T H E W O R L D J a m a i c a franchise
- Portland Point Morant Point South Negril Point CARPENTERS
- Jamaica W S N E JAMAICA 50 Miles 0 0 50 Kilometers 10 20 30 40 10 20 30 40 Blue Mt. Peak
- P O S T- I N D E P E N D E N C E P O L I T I C S
- G O V E R N M E N T S O F T H E W O R L D 3 J a m a i c a socialism
- G O V E R N M E N T S O F T H E W O R L D J a m a i c a compulsory
EDITORIAL BOARD E D I T O R I N C H I E F C. Neal Tate Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science and Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University C. Neal Tate is Chair of the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. Previously, he was Dean of the Toulouse School of Graduate Studies and Regents Professor of Political Science at the University of North Texas. He has published widely on comparative judicial politics and international human rights. Professor Tate has been Director of the Law and Social Science Program of the U.S. National Science Foundation; President of the International Political Science Association’s Research Committee on Comparative Judicial Studies; President of the Southwest Political Science Association; and is President-Elect of the Southern Political Science Association. A S S O C I AT E E D I T O R S Martin Edelman Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, University at Albany, State University of New York Stacia L. Haynie Professor and Chair, Department of Political Science, Louisiana State University Donald W. Jackson Professor, Department of Political Science, Texas Christian University Mary L. Volcansek Dean, AddRan College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Professor, Department of Political Science, Texas Christian University ■ ■ ■ Governments of the World A Global Guide to Citizens’ Rights and Responsibilities V O L U M E 3 ■ J A M A I C A t o P O L I T I C A L P R O T E S T C. Neal Tate, Editor in Chief ■ ■ ■ Governments of the World: A Global Guide to Citizens’ Rights and Responsibilities C. Neal Tate, Editor in Chief © 2006 Thomson Gale, a part of The Thomson Corporation. Thomson, Star Logo and Macmillan Reference USA are trademarks and Gale is a registered trademark used herein under license. For more information, contact Macmillan Reference USA An imprint of Thomson Gale 27500 Drake Rd. Farmington, Hills, MI 48331-3535 Or you can visit our Internet site at http://www.gale.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED No part of this work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, Web distribution, or information storage retrieval systems—without the written permission of the publisher. For permission to use material from this product, submit your request via Web at http://www.gale-edit.com/permissions, or you may download our Permissions Request form and submit your request by fax or mail to: Permissions Thomson Gale 27500 Drake Rd. Farmington Hills, MI 48331-3535 Permissions Hotline: 248-699-8006 or 800-877-4253 ext. 8006 Fax: 248-699-8074 or 800-762-4058 Cover photograph: The golden royal coach passes through the gate of Buckingham Palace in London, England (© Julian Calder/ Corbis). Since this page cannot legibly accommodate all copyright notices, the acknowledgments constitute an extension of the copyright notice. While every effort has been made to ensure the reliability of the information presented in this publication, Thomson Gale does not guarantee the accuracy of the data contained herein. Thomson Gale accepts no payment for listing; and inclusion in the publication of any organi- zation, agency, institution, publication, service, or individual does not imply endorsement of the editors or publisher. Errors brought to the attention of the publisher and verified to the satisfaction of the publisher will be corrected in future editions. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Governments of the world: a global guide to citizens’ rights and responsibilities / C. Neal Tate, editor-in-chief. v. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-02-865811-6 (set hardcover: alk. paper) — ISBN 0-02-865812-4 (vol 1) — ISBN 0-02-865813-2 (vol 2) — ISBN 0-02-865814-0 (vol 3) — ISBN 0-02-865815-9 (vol 4) — ISBN 0-02-866073-0 (e-book) 1. Comparative government—Encyclopedias. I. Tate, C. Neal (Chester Neal), 1943- JA61.G645 2006 320.3’03—dc22 2005010436 This title is also available as an e-book. ISBN 0-02-866073-0 Contact your Thomson Gale representative for ordering information. Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 J Jamaica Located in the northwestern Caribbean, Jamaica is the third largest island in the Greater Antilles. It is located 145 kilometers (ninety miles) south of Cuba and some 161 kilometers (100 miles) west of Haiti. Jamaica is a mountainous island with a relatively narrow coastal plain. Much of its interior spine, stretching 225 kilometers (140 miles) from east to west, is above 457 meters (1,500 feet). The highest reaches are in the east, where Blue Mountain Peak extends some 2,255 meters (7,400 feet) above sea level. Jamaica is a member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the Organization of American States (OAS), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and numerous other international and regional organizations. Jamaica is a par- liamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy. Despite its independence from the former colonial power Great Britain, the Queen of England remains head of state. However, her powers are largely ceremonial and are undertaken by her local representative, the governor-general, who is appointed by the Queen under the advice of the prime minister in consultation with the leader of the opposition. Real power resides with the prime minister, who is elected as a member of the House of Representatives in general elections for sixty constituency-based, single-member seats. Elections are normally held every five years and the prime minister is appointed by the governor-general, based on the confidence of the House majority. The leader of the opposition is chosen based on an ability to command a majority of those in the House who do not support the government. In this and other ways, even though parties are never mentioned, the two-party system is informally entrenched in the Jamaican constitution to the relative exclusion of third parties. The party system also is recognized in the upper house or Senate, which consists of nominated members. Thirteen members are nominated by the prime minister and eight by the leader of the opposition. For more than half a century, Jamaica has had an admirable electoral system based on universal adult suffrage. The entire adult population, without ■ ■ ■ G O V E R N M E N T S O F T H E W O R L D 1 discrimination, has reasonable access to the vote. There has been a history of relatively peaceful electoral change in which the opposition party has repeatedly taken power. The Jamaican press is free by any standard, and criticisms of the government, the opposition, the police, and private sector leaders are rife on daily talk shows and in leading newspapers. Jamaica also has managed to retain, though under severe economic constraints, a relatively adequate universal health system, comparatively high levels of literacy, and a reasonably high level of post- primary education. On the negative side, the survival of Jamaican democracy has been severely tested. This was evident in the widespread electoral violence of 1980, and in the 1983 elections that were boycotted by the major opposition party. Jamaica has a modern history of political violence, augmented by domestic and drug- related violence, that severely undermines security, the climate for investment, and the perceived quality of life. There also have been constant and disturbing cases of alleged extrajudicial violence and murder carried out by the police force. The judicial system, while apparently free of widespread corruption, has been chronically slow in delivering justice. Within the inner city there are a number of communities and districts, commonly known as “garrison communities,” where illegal voting and voter intimidation are common. Finally, there is a constant threat to the deterioration of public facilities, such as schools, hospitals, roads, and the transportation system, as the weak economy and often flawed economic policies have led to a massive internal debt, absorbing in recent years some 60 percent of the fiscal budget. H I S T O R Y Before the arrival of Europeans, the island known as Xaymaica was settled by the Tainos, a people who migrated up the Antilles from their origins in north- eastern South America. Columbus first landed in 1494 and claimed the island for Spain. By 1524 the Taino population had been decimated, either by death through forced labor or from exposure to new diseases. Spanish domination of Jamaica lasted for 150 years, until England captured the island in 1655. English rule lasted for three hundred years, ending in 1962 when Jamaica gained independence. Under England, plantation agriculture thrived. By the mid- 1700s Jamaica’s economy—based on slave labor and geared primarily toward the cultivation of sugarcane—made it England’s most valuable overseas possession. England brought constitutional government to the island, but it was an order founded on the dispossession and disenfranchisement of the vast majority of the population. The system included a governor who represented the king, and a leg- islature that was elected on a highly restricted property-based franchise . West Indian plantation society bred a racially based and hierarchical social order. At the base were the vast majority of black slaves, brought forcibly from West and Central Africa in deplorable conditions across what became notoriously known as the Middle Passage. In Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean, Africans from numerous nations forged their own distinct culture. A medley of continental retentions and eighteenth-century British borrowings, this highly adaptive Creole culture—best exemplified in modern-day reggae music—has persisted and remains the vibrant and dynamic culture of contemporary Jamaica. 2 G O V E R N M E N T S O F T H E W O R L D J a m a i c a franchise: a right provided by statutory or constitutional law; to give such a right hierarchy: a group of people ranked according to some quality, for example, social standing ■ ■ ■ Portland Point Morant Point South Negril Point CARPENTERS MTS. Portland Bight Montego Bay New Bank R io G ra nd e Milk G re at C a r i b b e a n S e a C a y m a n T r e n c h Kingston Hope Bay Alligator Pond Black River Lionel Town Port Maria Santa Cruz Browns Town St. Ann's Bay Bluefields Montego Bay Falmouth Lucea Negril Morant Bay Old Harbour Bay Hectors River Jamaica W S N E JAMAICA 50 Miles 0 0 50 Kilometers 10 20 30 40 10 20 30 40 Blue Mt. Peak 7,402 ft. 2256 m. (MAP BY MARYLAND CARTOGRAPHICS/ THE GALE GROUP) Modern Jamaican politics began with a labor rebellion in May 1938, when riots broke out for better working conditions in the west. These soon spread to the capital city of Kingston, where dockworkers went on strike, and then to towns and estates on the rest of the island. The Jamaican uprising, accom- panied by similar events in most of the other British Caribbean possessions, signaled the existence of deep dissatisfaction with the social and political order. A commission set up to examine the causes of the unrest, headed by Lord Moyne (Walter Edward Guinness, 1880–1944), concluded that a cen- tury after emancipation, the lot of the poor, black majority remained mired in poverty. Among Jamaica’s middle classes, a growing nationalist fervor led to the formation of the People’s National Party (PNP) in 1939. Led by the barrister Norman Washington Manley (1893–1969), the PNP sought to forge a peaceful and constitutional anticolonial mass movement guided by moderate socialist principles. Manley, who came from a rural family, was a decorated World War I veteran. He returned to Jamaica with his artist wife Edna, where he forged an impeccable reputation as a trial lawyer. Early PNP efforts to build a popular base were stymied by the presence of another popular leader: Manley’s cousin, William Alexander Bustamante (1884–1977). A moneylender and adventurer, Bustamante had won the confi- dence of the popular majority when he stood with them in the streets during the 1938 riots. He formed the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), to which the vast majority of workers soon belonged. At first there was an alliance between the PNP and the BITU, but Bustamante, following his detention by the British during World War II (1939–1945), broke with the PNP and formed his own political party, the Jamaica Labor Party ( JLP). In the first elections under universal adult suffrage (1944), the JLP defeated the PNP, with Manley himself losing his seat. From then until 1989, electoral politics followed a pattern dominated by these two parties, with one winning for two terms and then alternating with the other. Since 1989, the pattern has shifted, with the PNP winning successive elections in 1994, 1997, and 2002. In 1960 the West Indies Federation was formed, bringing together twelve British colonies in the Caribbean in an arrangement that was seen as the prelude to self-rule. Norman Manley, then premier of Jamaica, strongly supported the fed- eration. Although Bustamante was at first supportive, he later changed his posi- tion, arguing that it was against the island’s interests and proposing that Jamaica should move to independence as a single nation. In 1961 a referendum was held and Bustamante’s position won out. In new elections a few months later, the JLP won and Bustamante led Jamaica into independence on August 6, 1962. P O S T- I N D E P E N D E N C E P O L I T I C S Jamaica’s post-independence history can be divided into four periods. In the first (1962–1972), the JLP—under the leadership of Bustamante, followed by Donald Sangster (1911–1967) and then Hugh Shearer (1923–2004)—sought to establish a political and economic path closely allied with the West. By the late 1960s, however, in the face of rising unemployment, there was frustration with what was perceived by many as the failed promises of independence. This came to a climax in 1968 around the Rodney incident. Walter Rodney (1942–1980), a young Guyanese historian at the University of the West Indies, had been banned from returning to Jamaica after a trip abroad. Hundreds of students protested, and when the police sought to break up the demonstrations they were joined by thousands of the disgruntled urban population, causing significant property G O V E R N M E N T S O F T H E W O R L D 3 J a m a i c a socialism: any of various economic and polit- ical theories advocating collective or govern- mental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods ■ ■ ■ federalism: a system of political organiza- tion, in which separate states or groups are ruled by a dominant central authority on some matters, but are otherwise permitted to govern themselves independently referendum: a popular vote on legislation, brought before the people by their elected leaders or public initiative damage in one day of intensive rioting. The Rodney riots signaled the death knell of the Shearer-led JLP government. The second period began in 1972, when a renovated PNP under the lead- ership of Michael Manley (1924–1997) Norman’s son, swept the polls and ini- tiated the most tumultuous decade in Jamaica’s modern history. Developing his populist skills in the National Workers Union (NWU)—the trade union arm of the PNP— the younger Manley soon gained and perhaps exceeded the popularity of either Bustamante or his father. Michael Manley’s policies were reformist and extensive. A successful attempt was made to renegotiate the earnings from Jamaica’s chief mineral exports of bauxite and alumina. Policies were implemented to provide free education up to university level for all students. A new and expansive housing program began to address the housing shortage in the inner city and elsewhere. However, some of the policies were more controversial. The attempt to institute a compulsory national youth service program upset the conservative middle and upper classes. Even more alarming to them, and to Jamaica’s tradi- tional allies, was the new government’s emerging foreign policy. Manley sought to balance Jamaica’s unreserved commitment to the West with new initiatives involving the social democratic countries of Western Europe, the recently inde- pendent countries of the Nonaligned Movement , the Soviet bloc , and most star- tlingly, with Cuba. On its newly developed platform of “democratic socialism,” the PNP was reelected in 1976 with an increased majority. Almost immediately thereafter, the government’s popularity was undermined, leading to electoral defeat at the hands of the JLP in 1980, then under the leadership of Edward Seaga (b. 1930). In January 1977, following the December election, Manley announced that the national coffers were empty. In March, a loan agreement was signed with the International Monetary Fund. The initially mild terms of the loan were hard- ened after Jamaica breached the agreement in December 1977. From then until 1980, a spiral of increasing prices, layoffs, and shortages of basic goods caused public opinion to shift away from Manley and toward the more conservative Edward Seaga. The descendant of Lebanese immigrants, Seaga portrayed himself as the militant right-wing alternative to what he saw as the PNP’s incipient communism and its close relations with Cuba. Seaga won even more support amidst a deteriorating security situation. From the mid-1970s on, a spiral of violence initiated by gangs linked to the two political parties afflicted Jamaica. In his reminiscences of the period, Manley argued that the violence was part of a planned program to destabilize his government. Though there was no decisive proof, it is evident that the violence, alongside the deteriorating economy, served to undermine confidence in the PNP’s ability to govern. A third period of post-independence began when Edward Seaga came to power in 1980 on the promise that he would “deliver” Jamaica from the leftist policies of the Manley regime and reinstitute a policy of attracting foreign investment. To this end, he formally subscribed to the emerging U.S. consensus on the central role of the market, the limited role of the state, and the need to promote production for export as opposed to the earlier notion of import substitution as a stimulus for growth. Despite significant political goodwill from the United States in the first years of his regime there was very little new investment. Growth remained minimal, and unem- ployment levels high. 4 G O V E R N M E N T S O F T H E W O R L D J a m a i c a compulsory: mandatory, required, or unable to be avoided Nonaligned Movement: an organization of countries, formed in 1961, that did not con- sider themselves allied with either the western or the eastern blocs bloc: a group of countries or individuals working toward a common goal, usually within a convention or other political body ■ ■ ■ communism: an economic and social system characterized by the absence of class struc- ture and by common ownership of the means of production and subsistence By 1983, it seemed apparent that Seaga would lose the next election, when the Grenada event occurred. The Grenada Revolution took place in the eastern Caribbean in 1979, when Maurice Bishop (1944–1983) and the New Jewel Movement (NJM) overthrew the authoritarian government of Sir Eric Matthew Gairy (1922–1997). In October 1983, arising from a NJM leadership crisis, Bishop was placed under house arrest by a faction of his own party, subsequently freed by a crowd of supporters, and later executed by members of the Grenadian military, many of whom were also members of his own party. A week later, the United States, with the support of Jamaica and some eastern Caribbean coun- tries, invaded Grenada and overthrew the revolutionary regime. The fact of a leftist Caribbean regime destroying itself boosted Seaga’s pop- ularity. Taking advantage of this, he called a snap general election. Manley argued that there had been a solemn agreement that there would be no elec- tion prior to reform of the electoral system and refused to contest. The result was that the JLP contested without the PNP’s participation, creating for the first time in Jamaica’s history a single party parliament with the JLP holding all seats. Seaga’s victory gave him a second term in office, but the method of winning served to undermine his credibility. The government’s economic performance in its second term improved on that of the first. Growth occurred in the last three years, though this was against the backdrop of significant increases in Jamaica’s foreign indebtedness. Despite this, Seaga lost the 1989 election, and the PNP and Manley were back in power. Michael Manley’s return to office signaled the beginning of the fourth post- independence period. It was very different from his first appearance. The PNP in its new incarnation had accepted the U.S. consensus and, despite attempts to retain some of the old social programs, seemed to adhere to the new market- led policies even more thoroughly than did Seaga. Manley himself retired from politics in 1992 and handed over power to P. J. Patterson ( b. 1935). Patterson led the PNP to three successive electoral victories, making him by far the most successful leader in Jamaica’s political history. However, the relatively weak economic performance of the country stands in contrast to the achievements of this period. Jamaica’s growth had been limited and fell behind most of its immediate Caribbean neighbors. The most serious economic problem faced by the Patterson regime was the financial crisis of 1997. The deregulation of the financial sector led to a boom in banking and real estate during the mid-1990s. However, this proved unsustain- able, as there was very little new investment in productive enterprise and some banks were accused of engaging in unprofessional and even illicit lending activi- ties. The end result was the 1997 collapse of some banks and a bursting financial bubble. The government, arguing that it was the only way to prevent a complete meltdown, initiated a major rescue of the banking system, leading to a dramatic increase in the country’s long-term debt. After the PNP came to power, growth was very limited. Between 1990 and 1999 the annual growth rate of per capita GDP was negative (-0.6%). Foreign direct investment also was anemic; in 1990 it was 3.0 percent of GDP, though it improved to 7.6 percent of GDP in 1999. The fiscal deficit mushroomed and, perhaps most starkly, the Jamaican dollar moved from $J5 to $US1 in 1989 to $J60 to $US1 in May of 2004. Despite the existence of an economic climate that seemed ripe for political change, the PNP, in an unprecedented run, won four successive elections against the opposition JLP. The answer to this change in the normal routine of Jamaican politics is perhaps to be found in the continuing domination of the JLP by Edward Download 4.77 Kb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
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