The exception and the rule? Panama and Haiti since the end of the Cold War

• Grant number: 23/00987-1
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2023
• End date: July 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Political Science - International Politics
• Principal Investigator: Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos
• Grantee: Fabio Luis Barbosa dos Santos
• Host Institution: Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Osasco. Osasco , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research will analyze the recent political and economic evolution of Panama and Haiti in comparative perspective, taking as a starting point how military interventions led by the United States in 1989 and 1994 decisively reshaped the institutionality of these countries. I will investigate the meaning of the political and economic transformations brought about by these occupations, and what they reveal about changes in the United States' relationship with the region at the end of the Cold War. Since then, the economic success and political stability of Panama, contrasts with the low economic dynamism and chronic instability that characterize Haiti. My hypothesis is that investigating the recent evolution of these countries, informed by their historical particularity, illuminates the possible avenues of development open to Central American and Caribbean countries within the framework of globalization. It is argued that the Panamanian trajectory is marked by a singularity (the inter-oceanic canal), while Haiti condenses in an acute way, socioeconomic traits that are generalized on the continent. Rather than being a fortuitous condition, these extremes illustrate, in an emblematic way, the character of neoliberal globalization, which shapes exclusionary societies in a global order marked by competition and inequalities. What is considered to be a successful trajectory, in terms of this order, seems to be an exceptional condition, rather than the rule. Besides the relevance of this investigation in itself, its results will contribute to build the referential frameworks of a larger ongoing project, which involves the production of a book on the contemporary history of Central America and the Caribbean. (AU)