Abstract
Colonial-era administrative institutions and doctrines are fundamental to any analysis of Westminster's legacy in the Caribbean. Applying the lens of ‘Public Service Bargains’ (PSBs) – the formal and informal understandings of reward, competence and loyalty of public servants – we first examine constitutional and administrative doctrines regarding the public service of Crown Colonies, before analysing how these worked themselves out in Jamaica. Our analysis reveals a number of perceived deficiencies in the PSB in the pre-independence period that cast a shadow on future relations in the post-independence period.
Highlights
No study of ‘Westminster in the Caribbean’ can afford to ignore the role of colonial-era administration
While our analysis points to the difficulty in sustaining in everyday practice the understandings of the colonial-era Public Service Bargains’ (PSBs), it paradoxically points to its persistence, and to the difficulty in adapting a colonial-era administrative doctrines to the post-independence era
A report to the Government of Jamaica prepared under the United Nations Programme of Technical Assistance (Angus, Barrett, & Holstein, 1965) published only three years after independence highlights how the persistence of a colonial-era bargain founded on insulation from political factors imperilled the survival of the civil service itself
Summary
No study of ‘Westminster in the Caribbean’ can afford to ignore the role of colonial-era administration. Some official reports are directed more at the Colonial Office and its approach towards Jamaica (and the Commonwealth Caribbean); other reports focused more on the PSB applying to local civil servants.
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