Slaying the ‘Westmonster’ in the Caribbean? Constitutional Reform in St Vincent and the Grenadines
| Author | Matthew Louis Bishop |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-856X.2010.00432.x |
| Published date | 01 August 2011 |
| Date | 01 August 2011 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Slaying the ‘Westmonster’ in the
Caribbean? Constitutional Reform in
St Vincent and the Grenadines
Matthew Louis Bishop
The model of governance bequeathed by Britain to the Caribbean has long been praised for
ensuring that vibrant democratic practice has generally prevailed since the era of decolonisation. Yet
it has also become increasingly clear that the Westminster system of politics, as it is applied to the
region’s tiny polities, has come to exhibit serious deficiencies and is in need of reform. The current
government of St Vincent and the Grenadines has recently made a serious attempt to address the
issue, engaging in an expansive process of public consultation and constitutional reform which was
ultimately rejected by the populace in a referendum held in November 2009. This article seeks to
analyse both the form and content of the constitutional reform process, situating it within broader
debates about the Westminster Model itself.
Keywords: Westminster Model; Caribbean; governance; constitutional reform
Introduction
During the 20-year period between 1962 and the early 1980s, the vast majority
of the English-speaking Caribbean acceded to independence in a relatively calm,
constitutional and consensual fashion. These countries generally proceeded to
embed a system of government that was predicated on the norms laid down by
British rule in the region and which could be comfortably described as a
variant of the ‘Westminster Model’. During the early years of independence,
Westminster-style government was rightly and regularly cited as a large part of
the reason why—in contrast to many other less developed, post-colonial
societies—democratic practice came to be fully institutionalised within the Car-
ibbean. Of course, there were some exceptions to this, most notably Grenada in
1979, and also Guyana at various points in its sometimes troubled history. None-
theless, the broad pattern within the region has generally been one of deeply
ingrained liberal democracy.
Yet despite this, it has become increasingly clear that in many ways Westminster-
style governance is both ill-suited, and even potentially deleterious, to the quality
of democracy that prevails. There are a range of closely linked reasons for this. First,
as has been widely discussed with reference to UK politics, the Westminster ‘model’
is somewhat limited as a conceptual lens through which to understand how gov-
ernment actually functions (Gamble 1990; Smith 1999; Marsh et al. 2003; Moran
2005). Second, the real-world operation of systems predicated upon it, whether in
the UK or elsewhere, is consequently often deficient. Third, this can result in a
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-856X.2010.00432.x BJPIR: 2011 VOL 13, 420–437
© 2010 The Author.British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2010
Political Studies Association
practical manifestation of politics that—especially in the Caribbean—is character-
ised by the reification of many of the supposed tenets of the ‘model’, and a system
is therefore engendered that is in many respects a caricature of Westminster with
the intensification of many of its least desirable aspects. Fourth, the end result is
poor governance with a range of practical consequences, from an inability to
safeguard basic principles of democracy, to a state that is ill-equipped to construct
the kind of institutions necessary to deal with the myriad problems—particularly
those emanating from the global arena such as drug trafficking, global economic
restructuring and environmental degradation—with which tiny Caribbean societies
today have to grapple (Sutton 1999).
In this sense, then, government in the region has been said to have evolved into
something of a ‘Westmonster’ that is in dire need of change (Geiser 2009). Over the
years, many of the region’s governments have attempted to do this by instituting
reviews and processes of constitutional reform: most notably, Guyana in 1970, 1980
and again in 2001, as well as Trinidad and Tobago(T&T) in 1976 and again currently
(see Phillips 1977; Meighoo and Jamadar 2007). Yet as Hamid Ghany (2009, 19)
notes, it is only Guyana that ‘has actually completed any fundamental reform to the
extent that their constitution can no longer be described as being “akin to the
British model” ’. Constitutional reform has thus tended to be ‘conservative with a
small “c”, directed toward perfecting the system by keeping its essence intact’
(Sutton 1999, 69).
Apart from Guyana and T&T, it is St Vincent and the Grenadines—a tiny multi-
island country of approximately 120,000 people in the Eastern Caribbean archi-
pelago (hereafter simply ‘St Vincent’)—that has perhaps moved furthest. Led by
Prime Minister Dr Ralph Gonsalves, the incumbent Unity Labour Party (ULP)
government embarked, at the turn of the millennium, upon a concerted and
expansive participatory process of constitutional reform. Intellectually, this built
upon the region-wide debate on governance throughout the 1990s that had been
provoked by the publication of the West Indian Commission’s enormous soul-
searching investigation into the Caribbean’s political, economic and social prob-
lematic, entitled Time for Action (West Indian Commission 1992) and also Patrick
Emmanuel’s (1992) study that subjected the political systems of the region to
heavy critical scrutiny. After almost a decade of work, the new Vincentian con-
stitution was put to a popular plebiscite and was actually rejected by the voting
public in November 2009. Although this result is, of course, important in terms
of St Vincent’s own politics, the actual process of constitutional reform, along
with the final document, remain of significant interest to us as analysts in terms
of what they indicate for both the theoretical and practical critiques of the West-
minster Model. It is just such a discussion that comprises our analytical
agenda here. The article begins by unpicking some of the classical debates
about the Westminster Model, before tracing the rise and decline of the West
Indian variant. Next, it moves on to a detailed analysis of the politics of St Vin-
cent’s reform process. Finally, I postulate some broader conclusions regarding
the extent to which this tiny Caribbean state could have potentially moved
towards a post-Westminster era, along with the wider conceptual and practical
implications.
CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM IN THE CARIBBEAN 421
© 2010 The Author.British Journal of Politics and International Relations © 2010 Political Studies Association
BJPIR, 2011, 13(3)
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