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Fighting an Uphill Battle: Race, Politics, Power, and Institutionalization in Cuba

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Henley C. Adams
Henley C. Adams*
Affiliation:
Baruch College, City University of New York
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Abstract

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Although there exists a significant body of literature documenting the under-representation of black Cubans in the island's most important governing institutions throughout the forty-four years of Fidel Castro's rule, these analyses have emphasized limited access to political power as the sole factor responsible for this state of affairs. However, this comprehensive analysis contends that with the aging of the Cuban Revolution, other factors such as low holdover and high replacement rates for blacks during periodic reshuffling of the political elite have become crucial, albeit unacknowledged, explanatory variables for the paucity of blacks among the country's leadership. An important determinant for this pattern is the existence of inter- and intra-institutional stratification among blacks, the reasons for which remain unknown. Nonetheless, the presence of this factor increases the vulnerability of nonwhites as decisions are made about which individuals should be retained or replaced in key government institutions.

Type
Research Reports and Notes
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , 2004 , pp. 168 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

Part of this research was supported by a dissertation research grant from the Institute for the Study of World Politics. I would like to thank LARR's anonymous reviewers for their perceptive and critical suggestions, most of which have been included in the revised version. However, I assume full responsibility for any errors.

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