New Political Culture in the Caribbean

Abstract

In this new edited volume, Holger Henke and Fred Reno build on their important collection Modern Political Culture in the Caribbean (2003) and revisit some of the themes in Caribbean political culture explored some eighteen years earlier. The contributors to New Political Culture in the Caribbean consider more recent developments precipitating significant changes in the political attitudes and discourses in the region. Even the persistent themes in Caribbean political life – issues such as race, ethnicity, sovereignty, civil rights, or poverty – allow for new consideration, not only because of their longevity but also because in their contemporary form they may speak to new dynamics in society or find different forms of expression or political impact. The quality of political discourse – in terms of its content and forms of presentation – has significantly shifted over the first decades of the twenty-first century, and the impact of social media and a concomitant rise of political fringe discourses have accelerated the fragmentation of the public and polity, leading to sharper confrontations in the political sphere and giving once again rise to crude forms of nationalism. There are also various stressors and pressures that run counter to simplistic notions of nationalism and point to a great urgency for more transparent, sustainable, participatory and equitable modalities of political engagement and discourses in the region.