April 7, 2003 - 5:00 PM
John Coatsworth
Harvard University
John Coatsworth will address two issues that have shaped the history of the Cuban-US relationship. The first is the problem of democracy and dependence. To what extent is it possible for the small states of the Caribbean basin to develop and sustain political systems that are procedurally democratic and at the same time representative of citizens’ preferences? The second is the issue of reverse dependence. To what extent have governments in the Caribbean managed to externalize their interests by influencing politics and political outcomes in the United States? Coatsworth will discuss the implications that these issues have for the future of US-Cuban relations.
John H. Coatsworth is Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs at Harvard University and director of Harvard’s David Rockefeller Center for International Affairs. The author of several books and numerous scholarly articles on Latin American economic and international history, he is a former president of the American Historical Association. His most recent book is an edited volume, “Culturas Encontradas: Cuba y los Estados Unidos,” co-edited with Rafael Hernández and published in 2001 jointly by the David Rockefeller Center and the Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Cultura Cubana in Havana.
