About

About the Project

The Westminster in the Caribbean: History, Legacies, Challenges project at the Institute of the Americas at UCL is a network of researchers and practitioners working to conduct an expanded and updated analysis of the 50 year experience of the Westminster model of governance in the Caribbean. The Westminster in the Caribbean (WIC) Network considers how the Westminster political model has been adapted to the conditions of the Caribbean, its impact on Caribbean democracy, and the challenges the model has faced over the period of independence. These themes form the basis for three major conferences to be held in the United Kingdom and Jamaica in 2013 and 2014. The WIC Network is jointly funded by an Arts and Humanities Research Councils (AHRC) International Research Networks Grant, and by the Institute of the Americas at UCL.

Background

Between 1962 and 1983, the majority of Britain’s Caribbean colonies gained independence. However, while the colonial power had formally departed, it left in place political institutions and norms based on Britain’s Westminster model of government. Scholarship on the Westminster model in the Caribbean conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s focused primarily on the formal dimensions of democracy and drew mainly positive conclusions about the model’s effectiveness in producing stable democratic states in the region.  Since then, however, the Caribbean has undergone radical changes which bring into question the more optimistic assessments of some of the early scholarship. Globalisation, the international drugs trade, corruption, rising crime levels and the economic downturn are undermining the power of the state in the region. Liberal democracy, which the Westminster model was assumed to produce, is facing difficult challenges. The WIC Network seeks to assess the Caribbean’s Westminster experience and examine the prospects for the model in the coming years.

Objectives

The WIC Network brings together academics (from multiple disciplines) and practitioners (from NGOs, think tanks, government departments) to reflect on and contribute to critical debate on the evolution and perceived decline of democracy in the region at a time of renewed discussion of the achievements and failures of Caribbean independence. Its central aims are:

• To advance understanding of how the Westminster model has functioned in the Caribbean over the last fifty years, and explore its historical roots and legacies
• To analyse key challenges facing the Westminster model in the Caribbean, past and present, and assess the alternative models proposed or imposed within the region
• To test the assertion that liberal democracy has decayed in the region since independence

Project Outputs

The research of the WIC Network is disseminated via a range of outputs including this web-page, conference papers and reports, and other publications. A key output is the Caribbean Democracy Bibliography.

Project Steering Group

• Dr Kate Quinn, Institute of the Americas, UCL, (Principal Investigator).
• Professor Brian Meeks, University of the West Indies (Mona).
• Dr Peter Clegg, University of the West of England.
• Dylan Vernon, PhD candidate, Institute of the Americas, UCL (Network Coordinator)

Joining the Network

Use this membership link to apply for membership.