Transformation and continuity in Cuba

Abstract

This article considers the propositions of transition and transformation research with respect to the "deviant case" of still socialist Cuba. A central element of the explanation for Cuba's "nontransition" is the specific relationship of political continuity and economic transformation - even as the latter is carried out paradoxically largely behind the back of the state and against its officially expressed will. A second decisive factor is the simultaneity of the "political" and the "national" questions, in which Cuba's political system can present itself as the defender of national sovereignty. The aggressive policy of "exporting democracy" from the United States in the style of the Helms-Burton Law has thus exactly the opposite result: stabilization despite internal crisis and loss of legitimation.