The Cuban National Assem­bly: A Case Study of a Social­ist Parliament

April 26, 2002 - 4:00 PM

Peter Roman
The Grad­u­ate Cen­ter and Hos­tos Com­mu­nity Col­lege, City Uni­ver­sity of New York

Peter Roman is a pro­fes­sor of polit­i­cal sci­ence in the Behavioral/Social Sci­ences Depart­ment at Hos­tos Com­mu­nity Col­lege and a mem­ber of the doc­toral fac­ulty in the Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Pro­gram at the CUNY Grad­u­ate Cen­ter. He is author of “People’s Power: Cuba’s Expe­ri­ence with Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Gov­ern­ment” (West­view Press, 1999). Prof. Roman is a mem­ber of the Edi­to­r­ial Board of the jour­nal Social­ism and Democ­racy, and part of the edi­to­r­ial col­lec­tive of the spe­cial issue of Social and Democ­racy enti­tled Cuba in the 1990s: Econ­omy, Pol­i­tics, and Soci­ety (Vol 15, No. 1 Spring –Sum­mer 2001).

Peter Roman spent the fall 2001 semes­ter in Cuba, from Octo­ber through Decem­ber, study­ing the Cuban National Assem­bly. The pur­pose of this project is to ana­lyze and eval­u­ate the Cuban National Assem­bly, deter­mine its role within the Cuban gov­ern­ment, and study the con­tri­bu­tions made by the National Assem­bly deputies. His research has focused on the elec­toral process, the law mak­ing process, National Assem­bly and com­mis­sion debates, the work of the com­mis­sions, over­sight of gov­ern­men­tal min­istries and agen­cies, responses to com­plaints ema­nat­ing from the pop­u­la­tion, the account­abil­ity of deputies and their con­tact with con­stituents, and the role of the Cuban Com­mu­nist Party.