Civic-ness in the Caribbean: Civic society and governance in Barbados and Jamaica

This study tests the hypothesis of Robert Putnam (Making Democracy Work) which posits that 'civic-ness' explains why democracy works better in some cases than in others. This paper seeks to determine whether this variable explains 'good governance' in the Caribbean as well as it does for the Mediterranean.; In order to establish whether or not 'civic-ness' determines 'good governance,' two extreme cases in the Caribbean are examined. Barbados and Jamaica are case studies of variance in economic performance, government, and the social situation. The two are compared in terms of their levels of 'civic-ness,' an independent variable resembling Putnam's but altered for the Caribbean context. The dependent variable 'good governance' is defined by both social and political dimensions. The research utilizes statistics from the United Nations, the World Bank, and other organizations, as well as secondary data from newspapers and scholars in the field to compare the two cases.; This paper concludes that an adjusted version of Putnam's 'civic-ness' correlates with 'good governance' in these two cases. There is, however, further study suggested for potential confounding variables such as size, topography, levels of economic development, and external pressure from foreign lenders.