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This chapter examines Cuba's unique experience of socialism/post-socialism in the two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union. The Cuban case of post-socialist transformation is extremely instructive, both for what is anomalous about Cuban post-socialism and for what is similar to other post-socialist contexts. Cuba's experience raises a set of questions regarding how social science and education researchers should conceptualize “transformation” and it also suggests that considerable attention to be paid to the ways that change and transformation are represented and contested in the local political discourse. Cuba's unique position vis-à-vis neoliberal and state socialist modes of governance puts lie to any claims that there are any necessary and predetermined “paths” of post-socialist political and economic transition. Cuban education has changed over the past two decades in connection with regime legitimation strategies, projects of national self-determination, and global economic pressures – a combination of interests, actors, and institutions that suggests that it is the particular intersections and trajectories of both “local” and “global” transformations that demand analytic attention in post-socialist, as well as in any other, political, cultural, and social setting.

The function of imperialism in the world economic system is to transfer wealth produced by the workers of the Periphery to the capitalists in the Core. From this, it follows that for all countries in the Periphery, (1) imperialism impedes their economic and social development and (2) imperialism will intervene to reduce any limitations on its desired process of exploitation. These explain the nature of the Core’s relation with the majority of the countries of the Periphery, which are capitalist. By officially deciding in 1961 to pursue a non-capitalist path of development, Cuba (1) completely ended the ability of the Core to exploit its workers and (2) (much more problematic for the Core) threatened to set an example other countries might reproduce. The second part of this chapter briefly reviews the often-documented aggression by the Core against Cuba, and the third part reflects on the less-reflected-on issue of the effect of that aggression on Cuba’s project to build socialism.

This article evaluates contemporary Cuban economic policy and development prospects after a decade of market experimentation in a socialist context. An introductory historical review assesses the successes and failures of Cuban development policy in the 1970s and 1980s and describes the staggering dimensions of the economic crisis triggered by the abrupt disruption of Cuba's relations with the Soviet bloc in 1989–1991. The next section, “To the market in the 1990s,” examines Cuban efforts to stabilize the economy in the early 1990s while maintaining a strong social safety net. The historic policy shift toward limited market liberalization within a state-dominated economy is analyzed and the key market concessions described. The economic turnaround of the late 1990s and Cuban macroeconomic and industrial performance over the past decade are then examined. The final part of the article evaluates the coherence and sustainability of Cuba's emerging economic model and assesses prospects for the survival of some form of Cuban socialism.

This ethnographic study explores how local and global forces influence a unique set of self-employed people in Havana’s tourism industry – dance instructors – and how these circumstances drive the strategies and rationalities they use to navigate socioeconomic transformations. Cuba’s recent history of economic crises, the decline in welfare assistance, and an array of market-driven economic reforms have driven many Cubans to search for incomes in Havana’s lucrative tourism industry. Global circulations of people, wealth, and ideas shape the opportunities Cubans find in this type of work. Furthermore, strict state policies and regulations, in conjunction with underlying systems of oppression, hinder and constrain Cubans who work in tourism-based ventures. Building on theories of neoliberalism and tourism, we discuss how Cuban dance instructors develop professional skills, standardize their activities, and address global consumer desires/demands while simultaneously drawing from collectivized social norms cultivated under Cuban socialism. These hybridized formal/informal business tactics reveal how self-employed Cubans are positioned between socialist configurations and the capital-driven tourism industry. These innovative socioeconomic logics are also critical in understanding how people living in centrally planned economies, some of which are socially marginalized because of patterns of inequality, gain access to and participate with contemporary modalities of the global economy.

The Revolution is 50, Raúl has succeeded Fidel, and many dissidents who participated in the 2002 Varela Project initiative are in jail. What hope for “cambio” (change) in Cuba? Legal dissent – constitutional proposals, a legislative agenda, and grassroots civil rights organizing – may be the key. The Movimiento Cristiano Liberación (MCL), led by the Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Oswaldo Payá, presents the strongest challenge to the power of Cuba's 50-year-old Revolutionary government. This dissident group is at the heart of the development of the 2002 Varela Project and forms the core of the leaders arrested in the 2003 Cuban Spring crackdown. This paper traces the history of MCL's “legal dissent” strategy, from the evolution of the Varela Project to their development of an entire legislative agenda, crafted with nation-wide grassroots participation over the last six years since the crackdown. Using data from international NGO surveys conducted within Cuba, we analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the MCL's proposal vis-à-vis the political and economic concerns and interests of the broader population. Cuba's government seeks to consolidate its rule through its institutions, specifically, through the Cuban Communist Party. It remains to be seen whether the MCL's legal dissent strategy can successfully mobilize a broad segment of the Cuban population, and channel the political aspirations of reformers whose interests are not served under one-party rule.

Tourism in Cuba is a relatively unexplored area in terms of research. Therefore, the main purpose of this article is to shed some light on the past, present and future potential of tourism in Cuba. The author has monitored trends of tourism in Cuba since 1994. He visited Cuba for the first time in 1997. He met President Fidel Castro in 1998, and had a brief but friendly conversation. The research methodology included a combination of personal observations, e´lite interviews and desk research. The article analyses tourism in Cuba during three different phases between 1945 and 2002. Based on his research, the author predicts that by 2010. Cuba will become the number one tourist destination in the Caribbean, a position it enjoyed for a long time until the revolution in 1959. In conclusion, the key arguments to justify this prediction for 2010 are presented.

In response to its profound economic crisis, in the 1990s Cuba adopted a tourism‐based development strategy. As an approach to development, tourism has been both heralded and critiqued. One concern is that for less diversified economies it has large imported input requirements. The purpose of this paper is to analyze Cuba's efforts to address this weakness.

The paper draws on interviews conducted with Cuban policy makers and researchers working in the area of tourism, and one hotelier operating in Cuba. Also, extensive secondary data collected while conducting the fieldwork in Cuba and relevant existing literature are reviewed.

It is found that Cuba has increased significantly its reliance on domestic production for inputs for its tourist sector since the mid‐1990s, thereby reducing its dependence on imported inputs.

These findings suggest that, by reconfiguring domestic production to provide inputs for the tourism sector, foreign exchange leakages typically associated with tourist development in less diversified economies can be diminished and that it can provide an infusion of foreign exchange and investment that benefits the local economy.

This case presents an alternative to the neoliberal approach to policy making in the Global South, one that has the potential to avoid some of the negative social and economic consequences of that approach.

In addition to highlighting the alternative represented by Cuba's approach to tourism, the paper evaluates the extent to which it approximated the novel strategy of development proposed by the neostructuralists almost simultaneously. It concludes that Cuba's approach did approximate the neostructural model in a number of important ways.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the formal political, legal and economic institutional legitimacy challenges for (US-based) multinational corporations (MNCs) attempting to enter the Cuban market, discuss the key local constituencies in Cuba that are able to grant legitimacy and sketch out respective strategies to deal with each of these formal institutional challenges.

A qualitative research approach comprising semi-structured executive interviews was used, combined with the analysis of media accounts and recent governmental policies and developments. The authors interpreted the gathered data and information based on institutional theory.

This paper sketches out specific legitimacy challenges for (US-based) MNCs when entering Cuba and discusses strategies to manage these challenges.

The authors provide an application of institutional theory in the specific context of Cuba and so demonstrate the value of applying this theoretical lens to better understand the local legitimacy processes in this particular emerging market environment.

This study presents a framework of strategies (US-based) MNCs may use to inform their entry strategies into the Cuban market, based on an analysis of the local institutional environment, legitimacy pressures and constituencies able to grant or withdraw the approval and support of foreign MNCs.

This paper is an original application of institutional theory to the emerging market of Cuba using a qualitative research approach, and so contributes to an emerging stream of research studying this market context from an academic and practical perspective.