Posts in Category: Research
SIS Undergraduate Research Poster Conference
On Friday, April 20, 2018, I presented in the SIS Undergraduate Research Conference at the School of International Service, American University.
RPP 6
For most of my life, I have naturally been inclined to read a text of marginalized communities due to my own identity. These historical writers who have been marginalized from the mainstream context of scholarship are often criticizing the establishment or pushing back against the norm. As someone who has had schooling in both an American and non-American (Cuban) context, I have had two different pieces of training when it comes to heterodoxy scholarship and activism in scholarship. Growing up, the premier scholar that ruled most of the schooling in Cuba is Jose Marti, a thinker and extremely revolutionary writer with a clear call for activism and nationalism. This is mostly because the nationalist message of his writings integrates well with many of Cuba’s current issues, while in an American context thinker like Hobbes and Locke make more sense for the American debates.
From these last two week’s readings and discussion, I often wondered if reparations for the scholarship is merited when the work of great thinkers is marginalized due to their temporal situation. On one hand, it is a very rational feeling to try to right the wrongs of the past and shine light onto those who were pushed in the darkness, at the same time however, there is the possibility to think that we are reflecting our own contemporary views onto the pass and in an attempt to balance the historical field we pay more information to thinkers that were not as influential as the mainstream thinkers. There were comments made in our class discussion that I agreed with the most, sentiments that argued that we must recognize the institutional disadvantages that existed in any given time which might have prevented the work of a scholar from being influential, but that doesn’t mean that we must shift the reality of those who really made an impact and decide to focus on them.
Ultimately, I would argue that it is not societies decision whether a historical character should be separated or not. We must continue to study the most influential and impactful scholarship to best understand the greater dialog, but we should always be aware of the marginalized scholarship and why such thinkers were marginalized. This framing helps my research because I am often questioning whether or not I should be focusing on sources from the “exile”, Cuban’s who live outside of Cuba and normally attack the Cuban government. So far in my work, I have worked almost exclusively on Cuban government sources because it is the most influential source and scholarship on the island. Many scholars are marginalized in Cuba for their political stances and therefore are not able to be as influential as those who are given the means to really create motions and change in my specific research. This debate has helped me understand how to frame the scholarship of those who are left outside the margins and allowed me to help justify my major focus of government sources.
Abstract
The world continues to become more and more connected place, especially in the field of trade and international investment. Cuba remains as one the last strongholds of Communist ideology in the 21st century, but the government has started to allow for more Foreign Direct Investment which brings the question as to what economic model Cuba will use in the future. The introduction of free market activities like FDI and also the growth of private markets has created a drastic shift in the identity of the Cuban economy. This shift has led me to the question and what does this change represent the ideological stance of the Cuban government? At the moment there is no one economic model that is similar to the current Cuban economic status, some scholars try to compare the Cuban model to the Chinese model but the Cuban economy does not have the market prowess and consumer power that the Chinese market hold. I will attempt to conduct a historical analysis using a case comparison using Mill’s method of difference, focusing on three distinct periods of the Cuban economy to try to provide an understanding as to what factors can lead to socialist actors partaking in free-market activities. These findings can be used to examine how economic actions by socialist states might show signs of lack of belief in communist economic ideas or show actions towards the economic survival of a state.
RPP #11
There are a number of factors that come to mind when reflecting on how and why I came to my topic. The clear frontrunner is my aspiration to study topics related to my identity as a Cuban, but the specific subject of FDI in Cuba came from an observation and conclusion that the allowance of FDI in Cuba contradicts many of the communist ideological values that the Cuban revolution expressed. Another reason for research is to explore and bring attention to the subject of international business negations that have existed outside of the new focus of business relations of Cuba and the U.S. after the thawing of relations. It is often forgotten that Cuba had been performing similar partnerships with countries other than the U.S. before the thawing of relations and I use this lesser known fact to motivate my research. I am also interested in bringing attention to how much Cuban government has changed in economic terms since the beginning of the revolution. I feel that although these reasons are heavily influenced by my personal background it would also fall into Aristotle idea of contributing to a “richer world” because it is intended to create more knowledge.
I feel like some of my motives have a clear interpretivist approach since some of my motivations are to find a change in dialog but I have decided to pursue a Neo-Positivist Case Study approach because I feel that the best to explore changes and growth of FDI in Cuba is by analyzing the subject using eras to compare and contrast them. This approach still allows me to analyze the change in dialogue. I think that my research makes the normative assumption that the inclusion of Cuba in FDI is key to a less oppressive and ideologically different Cuban government.
In all, the ultimate goal is help create a broader understanding of the context of business negotiations in Cuba. Many times, any type of dealings with the Cuban government are politically charged, but this also comes with an emotional charge that often leads actors blind.
RPP 9
For my interpretivist research approach, I am proposing that I explore the social practice of entrepreneurialism in Cuba. This is a practice that I can expand over time which has a number of different discourses and actors. For a long time, this practice was illegal in Cuba and laws were put in place to discourage average Cubans from participating in this social practice. I want to specifically look at entrepreneurs in the private restaurant businesses. Cuban privately owned restaurants are locally known as “paladares” because that was the name of a private restaurant chain in the popular 1990s Brazilian soup opera Vale Todo (Anything Goes). The soap opera was one of the driving forces for the increase of private restaurants in Cuba during the 1990’s.
I plan to look at the Ordinance-Law 174 of the Council of State set in place in 1997 which directly attacked the private restaurant sector. This ordinance set up a fining system, prohibiting privately owned restaurants to serve things like red meat and seafood and also prohibited “paladares” from accepting foreign currency.[1] These new prohibitions were put in place to harm business from tourists to these private establishments. During the 1990’s the Cuban government-owned restaurants faced hard competition from “paladares” which are mostly food establishments inside of people’s homes. This ordinance was updated in 2010 by Raul Castro. Fines were still kept in place for private restaurants that operated without proper documentation but some of the articles, like the ones prohibiting the sale of shellfish and red meat, were reversed.[2]
My next steps in this research would be to research the other non-official discourses that the Cuban government has engaged in about the social practice of entrepreneurialism in Cuba. I plan to explore official state newspapers post and official speeches. I also want to investigate the discourse of the entrepreneurs themselves. This discourse may be limited however since there were not any official independent newspapers in Cuba during the time when the Cuban state targeted ‘paladares’ with these fines. I have, however, found different social discourse in music that was critical towards these government regulations and some art as well.
[1] Roberto Cespedes, “Regulan Autoridades Cubanas El Trabajo Por Cuenta Propia,” Reforma (Mexico City, November 11, 1997).
[2] “DECRETOS-LEYES, DECRETO, ACUERDOS Y RESOLUCIONES” (Consejo de Ministros de Cuba, October 2010).
RPP 8
My goal for the small-n case study research is to explain Cuba’s growth in the global market using business opportunities for foreign investment provided the Cuba government as my dependent variable. The way I would operationalize this variable is by viewing the types of foreign investment being made in Cuba as well as any government restrictions attached. Also, I would explore the type of Cuba government documents that justify foreign investment as part of the Cuban revolution goal. I would use the different investment sectors as the cases in my research to understand how foreign investment manifests itself in different economic areas. Explore issues like if one sector has freer regulations than others and what sector the government is most interested in the flow of foreign investment.
I will use the Portfolio of Opportunities for Foreign Investment released by the Cuban government in 2014 to explore and qualify the type of investment sectors and projects offered for international investment.[1] I In the portfolio, there is a table that indicates the number of projects offered to each of the sectors along with each specific project, the investment amount and investment type.[2] This source can aid me to operationalize of my dependent variable because it defines the different sectors of the Cuban economy as defined by the Cuban government. This portfolio has some interesting statistics and incentives and strategies for bringing foreign investment in Cuba especially in the tourist and agricultural sector which I can use as my main cases. The tourist sector involves projects for foreign investment that include the building of new hotel and golf courses, projects that seem to juxtapose many of the governments revolutionary rhetoric.[3] While the agricultural sector has a number restrictions and makes it clear that a large portion of this sector will stay under government control.[4]
There are other sources that I may use to operationalize my dependent variable like the Cuban government official stance in foreign investment by analyzing national assembly’s where this topic has been discussed. I can see the statistics of the companies that invested in these projects from 2014 and if they were successful or not. I will continue to research to compile any data of the projects from the 2014 portfolio that were implemented in the island.
[1] MINCEX, “Portfolio of Opportunities for Foreign Investment,” 2014, http://www.caribbean-council.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Cuba-foreign-investment-projects-Nov-2014-official.pdf.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
RRP #7: Cuba Poll
In preparation to my Large-N-Scale design sketch, I have decided to focus my research American economic policy towards Cuba and its influence on the Cuban private market. Florida International University and their School of Public and International Affairs conduct a “Cuba Poll” every two to three years in which the University polls Cuban-Americans about topical questions about U.S.-Cuban Relations.[1] In this poll, I will focus on the on the indicator subsection researching the embargo and economic reforms. The sample size includes 1,000 randomly selected Cuban- Americans adults that reside in the Miami-Dade County, the county with the largest Cuban population in the United States.[2] This dataset would serve well in my research because it provides insight into the political shifts of Cuban Americans which would help draw correlations into U.S. policy towards Cuba.
This dataset includes results from 9 different years (2016, 2014, 2011, 2008, 2007, 2004, 2000, 1997, 1993) which vary in results and can be used to explore the sentiment of the Cuban-American population throughout different periods of time. There is already an interesting shift in Cuban-American support for U.S. continuing political dialogue between countries.[3] The data was represented through two sets of percentages, one data set which excludes all non-response and “doesn’t know” answers and one data set in which those results were included. The question on the poll is based on an Ordinal set of data using the Likert Scale method (strongly agree-strongly disagree).[4] There are several independent variables in which the data is broken down. Each result shows the age percentage, the year of the subjects left Cuba, whether they were born in Cuba, and whether they are registered to vote.[5]
From this collection of polls, I can use the results of the questions about Cuba-Americans feeling towards economic relations with Cuba and how that may correlate with U.S. economic and business policies towards Cuba. The limitations of this poll lie on the fact that it is only focused one region of the Cuban American population. This may skew the results depending on political ideologies, Miami-Dade is a historically Republican county.
[1] Guillermo Grenier and Hugh Gladwin, “FIU Cuba Poll” (FIU Steven Green School of International and Public Affairs, Varies).
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
Bibliography
Grenier, Guillermo, and Hugh Gladwin. “FIU Cuba Poll.” FIU Steven Green School of International and Public Affairs, Varies.
RPP#6 Article Comparison
The economic reforms in the Cuban economy have created a newly emerging private market that seems out of place in a government that considered any types of capitalist activities to be counter-revolutionary. Scholars Richard Feinberg and Marshall Beck both have researched this phenomenon to examine the types of effect that these economic reforms have had on the Cuban society.
Marshall Beck conducts an ethnographic case study in Cuba by interviewing self-employed artisans about the types of effects the new private sector is having on peoples ideological beliefs.[1] Beck finds that the creation of a private market has a created a dissolution of socialist ideals in Cuba and has challenged the economic hegemony of the state-run market.[2] Feinberg conducts a similar research with the same approach, interviewing Cuban private business owners about their experiences being in the private market, hypothesizing that the Cuban entrepreneurs are Cuba’s new middle class.[3] Feinberg, unlike Beck, concludes that as the middle class starts overlapping with the emerging private sector, the Cuban people will push for more freedoms of information but will still believe in the Cuban government because of their educational roots.[4]
Each article has a different school of thought regarding the significance of Cuban market reforms. Beck views a growth of capitalist activities to lead to a decline of power for the Cuban Communist party, while Feinberg believes that Cuban entrepreneurs “still honor egalitarian values…and are proud of the revolution accomplishments”, pushing instead for a more open Cuba with greater access to internet and information rather than an entire demand for democratic capitalism.[5] These articles also take place during different time periods( Beck in 2001 and Feinberg in 2016), which also plays a factor into their findings.
In terms of contributions to my own research, the findings of both these articles are helpful. I think that the difference in results of these similarly approached studies could me help explore a new puzzle in the correlation between the evolution of the Cuban private market and the mentality and political ideals of Cubans.
[1] Marshall Beck, “‘Cuenta-Propismo’ and Reform in Cuba: A Case Study,” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 26, no. 52 (2001): 179–222.
[2] Ibid, 20.
[3] Richard E. Feinberg, “Emerging Entrepreneurs and Middle Class,” in Open for Business (Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2016), 131–172.
[4] Ibid, 171.
[5] Ibid.; Beck, “‘Cuenta-Propismo’ and Reform in Cuba: A Case Study.”
Bibliography
Beck, Marshall. “‘Cuenta-Propismo’ and Reform in Cuba: A Case Study.” Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 26, no. 52 (2001): 179–222.
Feinberg, Richard E. “Emerging Entrepreneurs and Middle Class.” In Open for Business, 131–172. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2016.