GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

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GLOBAL
DEVELOPMENT STUDIES
Copyright © 1999 International Development Options
All Rights Reserved
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Volume One Winter 1998-Spring 1999 Numbers 3-4.
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COMPETING PERSPECTIVES ON DEMOCRACY IN CUBA
Edward J. McCaughan
Sociology Department Box 30
Loyola University New Orleans
6363 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70118
Published online: December 15, 2016
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ABSTRACT
What does democracy mean for Cuba and to Cubans at the end of the 1990s? Based on forty-three interviews conducted with a range of intellectuals in Cuba, this article summarizes key elements of the ongoing debates about democracy in Cuba. Three major conceptions of democracy might be labeled as currents representing liberalism, state socialism and a new and renovative trend that reflects the other two conceptions as historically failed systems without creative democratic norms.