Government administration in a very small microstate: Developing the turks and Caicos Islands

Abstract

AbstractAs in the preceding articles on Bermuda and the Cayman Islands (Kersell, 1985 and 1987), our present purpose is simply to describe how a Commonwealth microstate, the Turks and Caicos Islands, has adapted the principles of the Westminster‐Whitehall model to its particular conditions. It is even smaller than Bermuda or Cayman, and far less prosperous. Thus it has found it necessary to further scale down both jobs (to create employment) and services (to economize). To accomplish the latter, it must also omit altogether a number of government activities. The Turks and Caicos Islands are the least developed as compared to Bermuda, Cayman, or even the British Virgin Islands. It is interesting that they alone have not only tried to conserve their traditional economic base in fisheries, but have also launched vigorously into mariculture on several fronts. Later than Bermuda and Cayman, they have turned to tourism and offshore finance in order to develop economically. The base for such development, as elsewhere, is their people–a resource threatened more seriously than elsewhere by the North American appetite for illicit drugs.