Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In 1959 the popular Revolution of national liberation and independence triumphed in Cuba, extended a few years later into a Marxist-Leninist strategy for building socialism and communism on the island. In this radical social and political context, conditions were ripe for a radical alternative approach to secondary school education. This research confirms and extends existing evidence and analyses, showing that the model of secondary schooling established in revolutionary Cuba shared fundamental aspects of dominant models throughout the world. In particular, Cuba’s revolutionary schools are shown to have adopted a similar approach to mass education, as an investment in human capital and citizen formation. In the analysis of this historical phenomenon, a world-systems geocultural approach is used to describe and explain the non-exceptional form and character of Cuba’s secondary schools. The approach synthesises world-system level economic and cultural aspects, within the concept of a world-systems ‘geoculture’ of development, describing how these interrelated influences historically conditioned secondary school education policy and practice in Cuba. This process is traced through the impact of the world-economy, and related world-systems geocultural assumptions and objectives, over the political economy of Cuba’s socialist project, with direct implications for secondary school education. The world-system level conditioning influence on school policy and practice is shown to have been mediated by the particular national conditions, such that features specific to Cuba’s secondary schools are identified within the broad framework and constraints of the world-system level influence. The world-systems geocultural approach provides a viable, historical account of secondary school policy and practice in revolutionary Cuba. General continuity is identified, in accordance with the broad, world-system level influence. The historical analysis demonstrates the need for a world-system level approach, and supports the need to include world economic and cultural factors, under the geocultural framework.

一九五九年革命後成為西半球第一個社會主義國家，革命以前的經濟幾乎全部受到美國企業的控制，是典型資本主義依賴形式。古巴革命後大多依賴理論學者認為古巴依賴結構應已打破，於是將古巴排除於依賴理論的適用解釋之外，但是歷經三十六年的社會主義的洗禮，從歷史縱向發展脈絡來看，古巴依然處於依賴情境之下。 　　不同點在於社會主義依賴的剝削機制少了跨國公司與外國私人資本，不過蘇聯透過跨國的共黨組織關係作為掌握社會主義衛星國的政經發展。因此有學者認為革命後的古巴用一種（社會主義）形式的依賴交換另一種（資本主義）形式的依賴。筆者認為依賴理論不應拘泥於抽象的解釋而應能用於具體形式的詮釋，故對依賴理論能否適用解釋社會主義體系加以探討。 　　此外，依賴理論所探討的問題核心大多偏向國內發展的各項問題，事實上依賴對外交政策的影響就如同對國內的影響多少會產生扭曲的作用。筆者試圖從古巴發展的歷史軌跡去探討在西班牙殖民時期、「唯美主義」下的古巴政治經濟發展並進而探討「蘇聯社會主義體系」下的古巴依賴結構與外交政策的演變。

Der Augsburger Soziologe Hans-Jürgen Frieß analysiert sowohl aus politologischer als auch soziologischer Sicht das politische Regime Kubas. Im Fokus steht die Frage der politischen Stabilität. Der Autor diskutiert die politischen, historischen und wirtschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen der Macht Fidel Castros. Der zeitliche Schwerpunkt der Analyse liegt in den Jahren von 1990 bis 2006, wobei auch vorherige Entwicklungen beleuchtet werden. Das Buch basiert auf einer Dissertation, die 2008 an der Universität Augsburg erfolgreich verteidigt wurde.

This dissertation explores the central paradox of Mexico's foreign relations with Cuba and the United States in the decade following the Cuban Revolution--why did a government that cooperated with the CIA and practiced conservative domestic policies defend Castro's communist regime? It uses new sources to prove that historians' previous focus on the foreign and ideological influences on Mexico's relations with Cuba was misplaced, and that the most important factor was fear of the domestic Left. It argues that Mexican leaders capitalized upon their country's "special relationship" with Castro as part of their efforts to maintain control over restive leftist sectors of the Mexican population. This project uses new sources to illuminate how perceptions of threat shaped Mexico's foreign and domestic politics. In 2002, the Mexican government declassified the records of the two most important intelligence organizations--the Department of Federal Security and the Department of Political and Social Investigations. The files contain the information that Mexico's presidents received about potential dangers to their regime. They reveal that Mexican leaders overestimated the centralization, organization, and coordination of leftist groups, and in so doing gave them more influence over policy than their actual numbers or resources logically should have afforded. The dissertation uses the concept of threat perception as an analytic and organizational tool. Each chapter considers a different potential source of danger to the Mexican regime in the context of the Cold War and the country's relations with Cuba. For the sake of clarity, it breaks the threats into the categories of individual, national, and international, even though these subjective categories may blend into one another throughout the course of the analysis. The first chapter begins with an individual threat: Lázaro Cárdenas, a powerful former president who became one of Fidel Castro's most dedicated supporters. The next three chapters analyze threats on the national level by looking at the domestic groups that Mexican leaders perceived to be the greatest dangers to their regime. The final two chapters move to the international level and examine the roles of Cuba and the United States. As a whole, this study of the connections between Mexico's foreign and domestic politics makes a significant and timely contribution to the historiographies of modern Mexico, U.S.-Latin American relations, and the Cold War. / text

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / In 1959 the popular Revolution of national liberation and independence triumphed in Cuba, extended a few years later into a Marxist-Leninist strategy for building socialism and communism on the island. In this radical social and political context, conditions were ripe for a radical alternative approach to secondary school education. This research confirms and extends existing evidence and analyses, showing that the model of secondary schooling established in revolutionary Cuba shared fundamental aspects of dominant models throughout the world. In particular, Cuba’s revolutionary schools are shown to have adopted a similar approach to mass education, as an investment in human capital and citizen formation. In the analysis of this historical phenomenon, a world-systems geocultural approach is used to describe and explain the non-exceptional form and character of Cuba’s secondary schools. The approach synthesises world-system level economic and cultural aspects, within the concept of a world-systems ‘geoculture’ of development, describing how these interrelated influences historically conditioned secondary school education policy and practice in Cuba. This process is traced through the impact of the world-economy, and related world-systems geocultural assumptions and objectives, over the political economy of Cuba’s socialist project, with direct implications for secondary school education. The world-system level conditioning influence on school policy and practice is shown to have been mediated by the particular national conditions, such that features specific to Cuba’s secondary schools are identified within the broad framework and constraints of the world-system level influence. The world-systems geocultural approach provides a viable, historical account of secondary school policy and practice in revolutionary Cuba. General continuity is identified, in accordance with the broad, world-system level influence. The historical analysis demonstrates the need for a world-system level approach, and supports the need to include world economic and cultural factors, under the geocultural framework.

The United States imposed the longest lasting sanction regime on Cuba in 1960 as a result of strained relations in recent years. Each US administration modified form of the sanctions regime, depending on the attitude toward the Cuban issue. General Assembly, the highest authority of the UN, adopts not legally binding but politically significant resolutions. Resolution condemning US sanctions regime has been adopted annually since 1992. Discussion on changes of the sanction regime in the General Assembly is a sign of reflection on current events and unrigid process of resolutions adoption. The main purpose is to determine whether the changes of the sanction regime were mentioned in the discussions on the adoption of the resolutions. The result of the analysis shows the reflection of the events in the speeches of ambassadors. The amount of mentioned events in speeches depends whether they were positive or negative step toward easing the embargo, and also how important the event was.

1 Abstract A Group of revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro has been struggling to overthrow the Cuban President Fulgencio Batista since the half of 1950s. After they succeeded on New Year's Eve 1959 the Revolutionary Cuban Government changed strategy in all aspects of the state administration. One of the most visible change happened in the sector of foreign policy. Cuba began to act not only as a sovereign country in relation to the neighbouring states which led to the conflict with the United States, but also began to actively export her model of revolution. The main initiators in this turn were Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Fidel Castro. The first region where Havana attempted to export the revolution was Latin America. Nevertheless, all attempts failed during 1960s. At the same time, the process of decolonisation in Africa visited by Guevara in the middle of 1959 was in progress. In Egypt, he established his first contacts with revolutionary leaders and subsequently informed Havana about the situation. The socialist character of a number of revolutionary movements was close to Cubans, so they started to widen relationship with them. First aid to Africa was sent by Cuban government at the end of 1961 to Algeria which fought for independence on France since 1954. Strengthening of relations between Havana and...

My dissertation on Cuban tourism links political, economic, social, and cultural history to show how the development of tourism on the island between 1945 and 2007 has been crucial in helping to cultivate identities for Cuba and the Cuban people on multiple levels. I focus on three distinct periods - 1945 to 1958, 1959 to 1979, and 1980 to 2007. While significant shifts occurred within each of these three phases, this periodization best illuminates the relationship between tourism development and identity. The fall of the Soviet Union, for example, certainly altered the pace of the industry's growth. Arrivals soared beginning in the 1990s, yet much of the institutional framework for conditioning the relationships between touristic actors had been established years earlier. Cuban planners had begun to target a range of specific markets by 1980, over a decade before the economic strife of the 'Special Period' in the early 1990s virtually forced them to move in this direction. For the entire period between 1945 and 2007, tourism and Cuban identity were linked in two very important ways. Tourism provided a lens for foreign visitors to view the island, its people, and its culture; to know what it meant to be Cuban. As well, the industry offered a framework for powerful interests to control the behaviors of Cuban citizens; to instruct them on how to be Cuban.

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El Caribe ha sido reconocido por considerarse una pluralidad de espacios que simultáneamente son solo uno. Contrario al contexto de su fragmentada geografía, su segregada historia colonial y su diversidad racial y lingüística, los intelectuales caribeños han establecido puentes de unidad cultural con la intención de configurar una identidad pan-caribeña. Por consiguiente, los ensayistas del siglo XX se enfrentan a la necesidad de examinar críticamente los factores que formulan sus respectivas identidades, en contraste con aquellas tradicionalmente impuestas bajo el discurso colonial y metropolitano. Desde el tercer cuarto del siglo, pensadores como Aimé Césaire (1913-2008), Fernando Ortiz (1881-1969), Fidel Castro (1926-), George Lamming (1927-), Kamau Brathwaite (1930-), Juan I. Jiménes-Grullón (1903-1983), Hubert Devonish (1953-), Edouard Glissant (1928-2011), Antonio Benítez-Rojo (1931-2005), Arcadio Díaz Quiñones y Maryse Condé (1937-), entre otros, cuestionan el sistema colonial, los procesos étnicos y las propuestas lingüísticas, relacionándolos con conceptos tales como la hibridez, el sincretismo, la transculturación y la heterogeneidad. Estas teorías culturales, de alguna manera, reescriben ideas antecedentes en reacción a discursos hegemónicos previos como consecuencia de los cambios políticos que trajeron las guerras de independencia en América Latina durante el siglo XIX. En mi tesis demuestro que estos planteamientos delinean un mapa de modelos epistemológicos de la cultura del Caribe. Para indicar que estas propuestas constituyen metáforas que muestran una consciencia cultural, las proposiciones acerca de la cultura de Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) y Hayden White (1928-) sirven como marco teórico apropiado. Así, a través de las representaciones literarias ensayísticas de los modelos metafóricos de la cultura caribeña, este trabajo redefine algunos aspectos importantes de la identidad cultural vis a vis la mirada parcial que usualmente se utiliza para estudiar el archipiélago antillano. Igualmente, incluso aunque estos modelos proponen una representación metafórica de la cultura pan-caribeña, la construcción de un modelo del Caribe puede ser utilizado en otras regiones y espacios culturales en el contexto de la globalización, ya que elucida una gnoseología cultural que sirve para describir distintas realidades globales.