After Fidel: The US–Cuba System and the Key Mechanisms of Regime Change

Abstract

This paper critically examines the different ways that analysts and policy-makers have assessed the future shape of the Cuban regime following the future passing of its long-time revolutionary leader, Fidel Castro. Certainly, from a social science perspective, the future of Cuba after Fidel Castro is open. On the other hand, different, often mutually inconsistent scenarios for regime transition suggest that Cuba's future is over-determined. Both features of social reality — openness and over-determination — create space for visions, ideologies, strategies, and other normative interventions designed to impose a particular cognitive and political order on social reality. While social science should try to include such ‘subjective factors’ in its objective account, it must maintain a critical distance from the normative closure and hopeful predictions that ideologies and strategies of necessity imply. Based on an analytical distinction between relatively stable systems and rapidly changing systems, this paper identifies and goes on to discuss the major systems of primary relevance for Cuba's future.