THE ROOTS OF DEMOCRACY were not deep in the Dominican Republic. The
country traditionally had been mostly poor, rural, and underdeveloped.
It had a weak economy, largely based on sugar exports, and it lacked the
social and the political infrastructures--political parties, interest
groups, and effective government institutions--necessary for democratic
rule. Thus, for most of their history the people of the Dominican
Republic had lived under authoritarian governments.
In addition, the international climate had not favored democracy and
development. The Dominican Republic, a small, dependent nation, poor in
resources, shared the island of Hispaniola (La Isla Espa�ola) with more
populous but even poorer Haiti. Tensions between the two nations could
be traced back to the nineteenth century, when Haiti controlled the
entire island (1822-44), or farther back, to the era of colonial rule by
the Spaniards. The Dominican Republic's economy, historically oriented
toward the export of primary products for the world market, was
dependent on fluctuating world market prices for those products, or on
the quotas set by major importers--factors beyond the Dominican
Republic's control. Moreover, the country's strategic location in the
Caribbean, astride all the major sea lanes linking North America and
South America and leading into the Panama Canal, exposed the country to
the buffeting winds of international politics, or led to its occupation
by major powers such as Spain, Britain, France, The Netherlands, and,
most recently, the United States. The nation's almost inevitable
entanglement in international conflicts afforded it little opportunity
to develop autonomously.
Beginning in the early 1960s, however, many things began to change in
the Dominican Republic. Per capita income in the late 1980s was four
times what it had been in 1960. The country's population was
approximately 70 percent urban (the corresponding figure in 1960 was 30
percent), more literate (in about the same proportion), and more middle
class. Political institutions had developed and had become more
consolidated. The country's international debt continued to be a major
problem and a severe drain on the economy, but in general the Dominican
Republic's economic position within the international community was more
stable than it had been in past decades. These changed conditions made
the climate more conducive to democracy than it had been at any previous
time.
In 1961 assassins ended the thirty-one-year dictatorship of Rafael Le�nidas
Trujillo Molina. There followed five years of instability that witnessed
a short-lived democratic regime under Juan Bosch Gavi�o, the military
overthrow of Bosch, a Bosch-led revolution in 1965, civil war, United
States intervention, and the restoration of stability in 1966 under a
former Trujillo puppet, Joaqu�n Balaguer Ricardo. Balaguer governed for
the next twelve years, until forced to bow to the electorate's desire
for change in 1978. That year Silvestre Antonio Guzm�n Fern�ndez, of
Bosch's party, the Dominican Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario
Dominicano--PRD), won the presidency. Guzm�n was succeeded by another
PRD leader, Salvador Jorge Blanco (1982-86). In 1986 the shrewd, but
aging, Balaguer won four more years as president in another fair and
free election.
There was, therefore, a democratic breakthrough in the Dominican
Republic in the early 1960s that led to instability, conflict,
intervention, and eventually an authoritarian restoration. In 1978,
however, a new democratic opening occurred. Whether this new democracy
would be more permanent than other frustrated efforts in the past, or
the Dominican Republic would again revert to instability and
authoritarianism, remained to be seen.
<>THE
SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT
Constitutional Development
Constitutional Development
By 1989 the Dominican Republic had gone through 29 constitutions in
less than 150 years of independence. This statistic is a somewhat
deceiving indicator of political stability, however, because of the
Dominican practice of promulgating a new constitution whenever an
amendment was ratified. Although technically different from each other
in some particular provisions, most new constitutions contained in
reality only minor modifications of those previously in effect. Sweeping
constitutional innovations were actually relatively rare.
The large number of constitutions does, however, reflect a basic lack
of consensus on the rules that should govern the national political
life. Most Dominican governments felt compelled upon taking office to
write new constitutions that changed the rules to fit their own wishes.
Not only did successive governments often strenuously disagree with the
policies and the programs of their predecessors, but they often rejected
completely the institutional framework within which their predecessors
had operated. Constitutionalism--loyalty to a stable set of governing
principles and laws rather than to the person who promulgates
them--became a matter of overriding importance in the Dominican Republic
only after the death of Trujillo.
Dominicans historically had agreed that government should be
representative and vaguely democratic, that there should be civil and
political rights, separation of powers, and checks and balances. Beyond
that, however, consensus broke down. The country actually had been
alternately dominated throughout its history by two constitutional
traditions, one relatively democratic and the other authoritarian.
Rarely were there attempts to bridge the gap between these diametric
opposites.
The first Dominican constitution was promulgated in 1844, immediately
after the nation achieved independence from Haiti. It was a liberal
document with many familiar elements--separation of powers, checks and
balances, and a long list of basic rights. However, an authoritarian
government replaced the country's liberal, democratic government during
its first year. The new regime proceeded to write its own constitution.
This second constitution considerably strengthened the executive,
weakened the legislative and the judicial branches, and gave the
president widespread emergency powers, including the power to suspend
basic rights and to rule by decree. Thereafter, governance of the
country often alternated between liberal and authoritarian
constitutional systems.
Even the dictator Rafael Trujillo always took care to operate under
the banner of constitutionalism. Under Trujillo, however, the
legislature was simply a rubber stamp; the courts were not independent;
and basic rights all but ceased to exist. He governed as a tyrant,
unfettered by constitutional restrictions.
After Trujillo's death in 1961, the constitution was amended to
provide for new elections and to allow the transfer of power to an
interim Council of State. Although promulgated as a new document, the
1962 constitution was actually a continuation of the Trujillo
constitution, and it was thus unpopular.
In 1963, Bosch's freely elected, social-democratic government drafted
a new and far more liberal constitution. It separated church and state,
put severe limits on the political activities of the armed forces,
established a wide range of civil liberties, and restricted the rights
of property relative to individual rights. These provisions frightened
the more conservative elements in Dominican society, which banded
together to oust Bosch and his constitution in September 1963.
Subsequently, the more conservative 1962 constitution was restored. In
the name of constitutionalism, Bosch and his followers launched a
revolution in 1965, the objective of which was restoration of the
liberal 1963 constitution.
Largely as a result of the United States military intervention of
April 1965, the civil war had died down by 1966. With Balaguer and his
party in control, the Dominicans wrote still another constitution. This
one was intended to avert the conflicts and polarization of the past by
combining features from both the liberal and the conservative
traditions. The 1966 Constitution incorporated a long list of basic
rights, and it provided for a strengthened legislature; however, it also
gave extensive powers to the executive, including emergency powers. In
this way, the country sought to bridge the gap between its democratic
and its authoritarian constitutions, by compromising their differences.
Although the 1966 Constitution had been amended several times
afterwards, it was this document under which the Dominican Republic
continued to operate in 1989.
Dominican Republic - The Executive
The executive had long been the dominant branch in the Dominican
governmental system. The president's powers derived from his supreme
authority over national administration, the armed forces, and all public
affairs. In addition, the president was the beneficiary of the worldwide
trends toward centralized decision making and increased executive
dominance. Television and other forms of modern mass communications also
focused greater attention on the president. The political culture of the
Dominican Republic, with its emphasis on machismo and strong leadership,
reinforced this tendency to make the president the focal point of the
political system. Not surprisingly, Dominican presidents traditionally
had been dominant, charismatic, forceful personalities.
The Constitution vests executive power in a president who is elected
by direct popular vote and whose term of office is four years. There is
no prohibition against a president's seeking reelection, but since the
electoral defeat of Balaguer in 1978, presidents had limited themselves
to one term. The Constitution requires that presidential candidates be
Dominican citizens by birth or origin, at least thirty years old, and in
possession of all political and civil rights. A candidate cannot have
been a member of the military, or the police, for at least one year
prior to his election. Vice presidential candidates must meet the same
qualifications.
The vice president may assume the office of president when the chief
executive is ill, outside the country, or otherwise unable to perform
his duties. If the president dies, or becomes permanently unable to
carry out the functions of his office, the vice president serves until
the next scheduled election. If the vice president is also unable to
fill the office, the president of the Supreme Court of Justice (who is
chosen by the Senate) serves temporarily. Within fifteen days, he must
convene the National Assembly (which consists of both houses of the
Congress of the Republic), which must then select a substitute to fill
out the term.
The Dominican Constitution takes twenty-seven paragraphs to spell out
the president's extensive powers. Among the most important are those
that grant him authority over virtually all appointments and removals of
public officials; empower him to promulgate the laws passed by Congress;
direct him to engage in diplomatic relations; and empower him to
command, to deploy, and to make appointments in, the armed forces. The
president also has vast emergency powers to suspend basic rights in
times of emergency, to prorogue the Congress, to declare a state of
siege, and to rule by decree. Historically, the exercise of these
emergency powers usually had been the prelude to dictatorship.
The few limitations the Constitution places on presidential authority
focus primarily on the requirement to secure congressional consent to
certain appointments, treaty negotiations, entry into certain contracts,
and the exercise of emergency powers. These provisions put no more thana
limited check on presidential authority, however, because the Dominican
voting system almost automatically guarantees the president a majority
of his followers in Congress. The Dominican courts also offer little
impediment to the exercise of executive power, mainly because they lack
the power of judicial review.
The 1966 Constitution provides for ministers and subcabinet ministers
to assist in public administration. These officials must be Dominican
citizens, at least twenty-five years of age, with full civil and
political rights. The powers of the ministers are determined by law;
they are not set forth in the Constitution. However, the president is
constitutionally responsible for the actions of his ministers. Ministers
serve at the president's discretion, can be removed by him, and function
both as administrators of their ministries and as agents of presidential
authority.
In a system as heavily weighted toward the executive as the Dominican
one, the force of a president's personality can do much to determine his
relative success or failure in office. Trujillo, the dictator, was tough
and forceful; Bosch, the democrat, was weak and ineffectual. Balaguer,
although he appeared meek in public, proved to be a very shrewd
politician.
Dominican Republic - The Legislature
The 1966 Constitution confers all legislative powers on the Congress
of the Republic, which consists of a Senate and a Chamber of Deputies.
The election of senators and deputies is by direct vote every four
years. Congressional terms, therefore, are coterminous with presidential
terms, which greatly increases the possibility that the president's
party will enjoy a majority in the legislature.
One senator is elected from each of the country's provinces and from
the National District (Santo Domingo). In 1989 the Dominican Senate had thirty members. Deputies also
represent provinces, but their seats are apportioned on the basis of
population; thus, the more populous provinces and the National District
have larger delegations. In 1989 there were 120 representatives in the
Chamber of Deputies.
Deputies and senators must be Dominican citizens, at least
twenty-five years old, with full civil and political rights. They must
have been natives, or residents for at least five years, of the province
they wish to represent. Naturalized citizens are eligible to run for
Congress if they have been Dominican citizens for ten years. Congressmen
are not allowed to hold another public office concurrently.
The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies may meet together as the
National Assembly on certain specific occasions cited by the
Constitution--for example, when both the president and the vice
president are unable to complete their terms of office and a successor
must be designated. By a three-fourths vote, the Chamber of Deputies may
bring accusations--against public officials--before the Senate, but it
has no other exclusive powers. In contrast, the Senate has several
exclusive powers: selecting members of the Supreme Court and other lower
courts, choosing the president and the members of the Central Electoral
Board, approving diplomatic appointments made by the president, and
hearing cases of public misconduct brought before it by the Chamber of
Deputies.
The Congress has broad powers to levy taxes, to change the country's
political subdivisions, to declare a state of emergency, to regulate
immigration, to approve or to reject extraordinary expenditures
requested by the executive, to legislate on all matters concerning the
public debt, to examine annually all the acts of the executive, to
interrogate cabinet ministers (a bow to parliamentary government), and
to legislate on all matters not within the constitutional mandate of
other branches of government or contrary to the Constitution.
For more than a century, the Congress remained a submissive, even
somnolent, branch. For many years, under one or another of the country's
many dictators, it did not meet at all. Beginning in the 1960s, however,
the Congress began to assert itself. President Bosch sometimes had
trouble with members of his own party in the Congress; and, although
Balaguer ruled as a strong leader from 1966 to 1978, his Congress did
not always function as a rubber stamp either.
The real breakthrough came with the restoration of full democracy in
1978. Even though, under presidents Guzm�n and Jorge, the majority in
Congress belonged to the president's party, that did not stop the
Congress from dissenting on various bills, frustrating presidential
initiatives in certain particulars, and serving as an increasingly
important check on the executive. Although not yet coequal with the
executive as a branch of government, the Congress had grown as an
independent body, and its ability to check presidential power could no
longer be easily dismissed.
Dominican Republic - The Judiciary
Judicial power is exercised by the Supreme Court of Justice and by
other courts created by the Constitution and by law. The Constitution
establishes courts of first instance in each province as well as a land
tribunal and courts of appeal. Justices of the peace exist in each
municipality and in the National District. The Constitution also
mandates a court of accounts, which examines the country's finances and
reports to the Congress.
Centralized and hierarchical, the Dominican legal system was
patterned after the French system. It employed a code-law legal system
rather than a common law system, such as the one used in the United
States. Detailed and comprehensive, the codes left little room for
United States-style judicial activism or citation of precedent. Legal
reasoning was deductive (from the codes), rather than inductive, or
based on past cases.
The Constitution calls for a Supreme Court consisting of nine judges.
Judges are chosen by the Senate, not by the president, ostensibly to
limit executive power. The Senate also selects the judges for the lower
courts. Supreme Court justices must be Dominican citizens by birth or
parentage, at least thirty-five years old, with full political and civil
rights. They are required to have law degrees and to have practiced law,
or held judicial office, for at least twelve years. These requirements
become progressively less strict for lower-court justices.
The Supreme Court has the exclusive power to assume jurisdiction in
matters affecting the president and other high officials, to act as a
court of cassation, to serve as a court of last instance in matters
forwarded from appellate courts, to exercise final disciplinary action
over other members of the judiciary, and to transfer justices from one
jurisdiction to another. The Supreme Court does not have the formal
power to review the constitutionality of laws, decrees, or resolutions
put into effect by the president or the Congress, although a movement
began in the late 1970stoward limited judicial oversight of government
acts.
The courts in the Dominican Republic historically have been
subservient to the government in power. Moreover, politics have
frequently dominated court proceedings, and the entire judicial system
may be subject to outside pressures and, at times, even intimidation.
Nevertheless, since the early 1960s the court system has become
stronger, and the judiciary has become a more independent, if not a
coequal, branch of government.
Dominican Republic - Public Administration
The fall of the Trujillo dictatorship in 1961 did not produce a
corresponding disruption of the traditions and practices characteristic
of the government service. Corruption, nepotism, wholesale dismissals
for purely political reasons, loyalty checks, patronage, and the sowing
of distrust and suspicion had become ingrained habits which, unlike
Trujillo, did not disappear overnight. However, the old habits were
challenged by new pressures: demands that the bureaucracy provide real
goods and services, that public functions be carried out honestly and
efficiently, and that the government respond to the pent-up needs and
demands of the population. The clash between the traditional patterns of
bureaucratic behavior and new demands for public services, such as
health care, education, water supplies, and electricity, contributed
significantly to the political instability of the post-Trujillo period.
No effective law existed to protect Dominican public officials in
their jobs. From the cabinet level to the lowest ranks, virtually all
civil servants were appointed, served, and could be removed largely at
the will of the president. The result was a patronage-dominated system
in which public sector jobs were given out in return for loyalty and
service.
Merit, achievement, and competence, therefore, were not always the
main criteria guiding government appointments. The public bureaucracy
was often characterized by genuine incompetence, even at the highest
levels. Nepotism and corruption--defined as a favor in return for a
favor, the granting of special governmental privileges to favored
persons, private enrichment stemming from public service, or outright
bribery--were also widespread. Those who tried to be honest were
scorned; they were considered foolish by their colleagues. Indeed,
government service was thought of, not so much as an honored career, as
a brief opportunity to indulge oneself at the public trough. The
frequent failure of government programs could often be attributed
directly to the corruption and incompetence of the bureaucracy.
Patronage and related activities were often tolerated at lower levels,
so long as they were kept within reasonable bounds; however, when the
corruption became blatant, as it did under President Jorge, the
government was likely to suffer at the polls.
Under the president, were a number of technical offices--
administration, planning, budget, personnel--designed to help him
perform his job more effectively. These offices generally did not
function well, however, and most Dominican presidents continued to
operate as personalistic and patronage leaders.
The size of the cabinet could vary; in 1989 it consisted of sixteen
secretaries of state, three without ministerial portfolio. There were
also an administrative secretary of state for the presidency, a
technical secretary of state for the presidency, and twelve additional
secretaries of state administering various ministries. The cabinet did
not function as an independent arm of, nor very often as an advisory
body for, the presidency (although some of its individual members
might); rather, it was a loose collection of administrators, operating
almost entirely according to the wishes of the president.
In addition to the cabinet ministries, there were in 1989 fourteen
autonomous agencies and eleven semiautonomous agencies. The autonomous
and semiautonomous agencies were established in the early 1960s to
administer new public programs as well as the vast properties and
enterprises inherited by the state after the death of Trujillo, who in
addition to his political power had vast economic holdings. These
agencies administered an array of programs and enterprises, ranging from
farm loans to cooperatives and vast sugar lands. The largest of these
were the State Sugar Council (Consejo Estatal de Az�car--CEA), the
85,000 employees of which made it the largest employer in the country,
and the State Enterprises Corporation (Corporaci�n Dominicana de
Empresas Estatales--Corde), into which a number of smaller state-owned
enterprises had been consolidated.
Dominated by patronage considerations and plagued by corruption, the
autonomous and semiautonomous agencies were frequently mismanaged. Some
officials, believing that these agencies could be run more efficiently
by the private sector, periodically proposed putting them up for sale.
The usual reactions to such efforts included objections from
nationalists about selling out the national patrimony; from politicians,
seeking to preserve patronage opportunities; and from the employees of
the state-run agencies, who feared layoffs under private sector
management.
Dominican Republic - Local Government
The Dominican system of local government, like the Dominican legal
system, was based on the French system of top-down rule and strong
central authority. The country was divided into twentynine provinces,
plus the National District (Santo Domingo). The provinces, in turn, were
subdivided into a total of seventy-seven municipalities (or counties).
Each province was administered by a civil governor appointed by the
president. A governor had to be a Dominican citizen, at least
twenty-five years old, and in full possession of his civil and political
rights. The powers and duties of governors are set by law. The
Constitution establishes the structure of local government; its specific
functions are enumerated in the municipal code.
The municipalities and the National District were governed by mayors
and municipal councils, both popularly elected to fouryear terms. The
size of the councils depended on the size of the municipality, but each
was required to have at least five members. The qualifications of local
officials as well as the powers and duties of mayors and councils were
set by law. Naturalized citizens could hold municipal office, provided
they had lived in the community at least ten years.
Neither provinces nor municipalities had any independent power to
levy taxes, so few services could be initiated at the local level. There
were no local police departments, only a single national force. Policy
and programs with regard to education, social services, roads,
electricity, and public works were similarly administered at the
national level, rather than at the provincial or the municipal level.
Local government was therefore weak and ineffective, not only because it
lacked taxing authority, but also because, in the Dominican system, the
central government set virtually all policy.
Starting in the early 1960s, various efforts were made to strengthen
Dominican local government. A new municipal league came into existence
in 1962, and efforts were made to develop community spirit, local
initiative, and self-help projects. These projects were not wholly
successful, in large part because of the traditional arrangement under
which virtually all power flowed downward from the central government.
In the late 1980s, Santo Domingo remained the focus of the country's
affairs, the source of power and largesse.
Dominican Republic - The Electoral System
The electoral system in place as of 1989 could trace its roots to the
death of Trujillo. Following the dictator's assassination in 1961, the
Dominican government asked the Organization of American States (OAS) to
send a technical advisory mission to the country to help set up a system
of free elections. Upon the mission's recommendation, the country
established a hierarchy of electoral boards. The Central Electoral
Board, consisting of three members appointed by the Senate, was the
highest of these bodies.
Members of the Central Electoral Board were appointed to serve
twelve-year terms. The Board chose the members of the provincial and
municipal boards, who served at its pleasure. The Board issued
regulations to ensure free and honest elections; directed the
distribution of ballots, equipment, and voting materials; and supervised
the functioning of the lower-level electoral boards.
The Central Electoral Board was given responsibility for printing
ballots for each Dominican political party. To facilitate voting by
those unable to read, each party's ballot was printed a different color.
The ballots also bore the emblems of the parties participating, as an
additional aid to nonreaders. Election day was a national holiday;
alcoholic beverages could not be sold that day, and the polls were open
from 6:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Voting was free, secret, and obligatory for both men and women.
Suffrage was granted to everyone eighteen years old or older, and to
every married person regardless of age. Members of the police or the
armed forces were ineligible to vote, as were those who had lost their
political and civil rights, such as incarcerated criminals. Elections
were regulated by law, and they were administered by the Central
Electoral Board.
Dominican elections could be breathtaking affairs. In 1978 losing
candidate Balaguer impounded the ballot boxes and seemed about to steal
the election; pressure from the United States forced a resumption of the
vote count, which led to Guzm�n's victory. The 1986 presidential
election also produced controversy. This time Balaguer won, but the
losing candidate of the PRD Jacobo Majluta Azar, claimed fraud and
refused to concede. Majluta demanded a recount and threatened that
violence might result otherwise. In this case, an independent electoral
commission headed by the archbishop of Santo Domingo intervened in the
dispute, verified the Balaguer victory, and persuaded Majluta to accept
its independent vote tally.
Since 1978, elections had gained legitimacy as a means of choosing
the president and other leaders. The elections of 1982 and 1986 had
generally been fair, honest, competitive, and free, but elections still
represented only one of several possible means to power in the Dominican
Republic, the others being a skillfully executed coup d'�tat or a
heroic revolution. Moreover, Dominican elections did not necessarily
bestow the definitive legitimacy usually accorded an elected government
in more developed democratic nations.
Dominican Republic - POLITICAL DYNAMICS
The System of Dominican Politics
The Dominican Republic's long history of political instability had
included many revolutions, coups d'�tat, barracks revolts, and pronunciamientos
(insurrections accompanied by declarations of disagreement with the
existing government), as well as social and political breakdowns. Coups
and revolutions are among the easiest political phenomena to measure
systematically. When a country has had so many, one must conclude that
they are a regular, normal part of the political process. Therefore, it
is not the case that Dominican politics are unsystematic.
Politics in the Dominican Republic functions on a smaller and less
formal scale than politics in the United States. Sometimes it seems that
everyone in the Dominican Republic who counts politically knows everyone
else who counts; many in this group are also interrelated by blood or
marriage. It is a small country, with only one main city. Politics is
therefore more like old-fashioned United States county politics. In this
context, family and clan networks, patronage systems, close friendships,
the bonds of kinship, personal ties, and extended family, ethnic, or
other personal connections are as important as the more formal and
impersonal institutions of a larger political system. The Dominican
Republic has large-scale organizations, such as political parties,
interest groups, professional associations, and bureacratic
organizations, but often the informal networks are at least as
important. They are, in addition, the features that are the most
difficult for outsiders to penetrate and to understand.
To comprehend Dominican politics, therefore, one must understand
first of all the family networks: who is related to whom, and how and
what (if anything) these family ties mean. One must also understand the
social and the racial hierarchies, who speaks to whom and in what tone
of voice, who sees whom socially, and what these social ties imply
politically. One must know about past business deals and associations,
whether they were clean or "dirty," and what each family or
individual knows or thinks about associates. One must understand where
the different families "fit" in the Dominican system, whether
they are old rich or new rich, their bloodlines, what they share
politically, and what pulls them apart. Many of these family and clan
associations and rivalries go back for generations.
Family and personalistic associations overlap and interact with the
institutions of a more modern political system in all sorts of complex
ways. For example, what goes by the name of a political party actually
may turn out to be the personalistic apparatus of a single politician or
family; or a certain office within the government bureaucracy may turn
out to be the private preserve of a single family or clan. In order to
understand Dominican politics, one must comprehend these complex
overlaps of traditional and modern institutions and practices, of family
and clan-based politics, and of modern political organizations.
Dominican Republic - Political Developments since 1978
The contemporary political system of the Dominican Republic dates
from 1978. That year Balaguer, who had governed the country in an
authoritarian, but paternalistic, manner for the preceding twelve years,
was forced, because of domestic and international pressures, to yield
the presidency to Guzm�n, a wealthy rancher and candidate of the PRD,
who had clearly won the election. Guzm�n governed democratically and
with full respect for human rights, but he committed suicide in 1982,
apparently because of evidence of corruption reaching into his own
family. The vice president, Majluta, took over temporarily until a new
government, which actually had been elected before Guzm�n's suicide,
could be inaugurated.
The 1982 election was fair, honest, and competitive. It was won by
Jorge, a lawyer who, like Guzm�n, was a member of the PRD. But whereas
Guzm�n had represented the conservative wing of the party, Jorge
represented its centrist, or social-democratic, wing.
President Jorge continued, like Guzm�n, to govern in a democratic
matter. His government respected civil liberties and honored human
rights. Jorge had promised to expand the democratic reforms begun by his
predecessor in the areas of agrarian reform, social justice, and
modernization. He campaigned on the slogan, and entered office with the
intention of bringing, "economic democracy" to the country to
go with its now flourishing political democracy.
But 1982, the year of Jorge's inauguration, was the year the bottom
dropped out of the Dominican economy. The country began to feel the full
impact of the second oil price rise, induced by the Organization of
Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC); recession in the United States and
Western Europe dried up the market for Dominican exports; and the
international debt crisis also hit home strongly. These conditions
forced Jorge to abandon his ambitious reform agenda in favor of severe
austerity, belttightening , and a cutback in services. The nation
witnessed the wrenching dilemma of a reform democrat, a socialist, who
had to give up his entire social-democratic program in order to impose
severely restrictive economic policies, the burden of which, as usual,
fell most heavily on the shoulders of the poor--precisely those people
who had been Jorge's main constituency. Jorge's popularity plummeted,
and in 1985 riots broke out in response to his austerity measures, riots
that the police put down with considerable loss of civilian life.
To his credit, Jorge succeeded in putting in place a sorely needed
budget-balancing program that offered hope of getting the country out of
its severe economic troubles. The steep decline in the president's
popularity, however, prompted even members of his own party in the
Congress and elsewhere to turn against him. In addition, increasing
evidence of corruption in the public bureaucracy began to surface; as
the austerity measures pinched, there was little extra money in the
system, and the low-level patronage that had always existed began to be
perceived as blatant, high-level graft. As Jorge's popularity declined,
so did that of his entire government and his party.
New elections were held in 1986. President Jorge's deeply divided PRD
eventually nominated Majluta, Guzm�n's vice president, who four years
earlier had served a short stint as interim president. Majluta was of
Lebanese background, a longtime PRD stalwart, and a businessman who was
tainted with the corruption of the previous administrations. He was
opposed by Balaguer, who, though old and legally blind, still enjoyed
widespread popularity. Many associated Balaguer with the economic boom
of the 1970s; in addition, he was widely admired as a shrewd,
resourceful, and skilled politician. In a very closely contested
election, Balaguer won with 41 percent of the vote to Majluta's 39
percent. Another former president, Bosch, candidate of the leftist
Dominican Liberation Party (Partido de la Liberaci�n Dominicana--PLD),
garnered 18 percent.
In office, Balaguer proved as adept as before, although now slowed by
age and infirmity. He juggled assignments within the armed forces to
assure its loyalty and support; followed policies that pleased the
economic elites, while at the same time doling out land and patronage to
the peasants; and fostered greater contact with Cuba, while
simultaneously keeping United States support. He listened to advice from
all quarters, but kept his own counsel, kept his subordinates off guard
and insecure so they could not develop a base from which to challenge
the president himself, and refused to designate a successor while
keeping all his own options open. Balaguer delegated some limited power
and patronage to subordinates, but he kept most of the reins of power in
his own hands; he let cabinet and autonomous agency heads have a bit of
responsibility, while he maintained control of the allimportant
jobs--patronage, money, and military matters. Whatever one thinks of his
policies, Balaguer must be considered one of the cleverest presidents in
Dominican history.
Dominican Republic - Interest Groups
The armed forces (army, navy, air force, and National Police) were
among the best organized and the most powerful groups in Dominican
national life. The military was more than a simple interest group,
however. Stemming historically from the medieval Spanish system, the
military constituted an integral part of the political regime, but one
only nominally subordinate to civilian authority.
The modern Dominican armed forces were a product of the Trujillo era
and of the often corrupt and brutal practices of that regime. Trujillo
built up the armed forces enormously and gave them modern equipment, but
he also encouraged graft, rakeoffs , and political interference.
Since Trujillo, various efforts had been made to reform, to
modernize, and to professionalize the armed forces. These efforts had
been only partially successful. In the late 1980s, the armed forces
undoubtedly were better trained, better educated, and better equipped
than before, but military personnel also tended to use their positions
to augment their salaries, to acquire wealth and land, and to exercise
political as well as military power, sometimes on a grand scale. At the
same time, civilian political interference in the military (promotions,
commands, favoritism, etc.) occurred at least as often as military
interference in political affairs.
Since the mid-1970s, the pressures to reform the armed forces and to
make them definitively apolitical and subordinate to civilian authority
had intensified. Evidence of the success of this subordination is that,
in various crises (for example, the electoral crises of 1978 and 1986
and the riots of 1985), the military behaved quite professionally and
made no effort to seize the government. Nevertheless, no one is really
certain how the armed forces would react in the face of endemic unrest,
a popular guerrilla movement, economic collapse, or the possibility of a
leftist electoral victory.
Dominican Republic - The Roman Catholic Church
The Dominican Republic remained over 90 percent Roman Catholic in the
late 1980s, despite major gains by Protestant groups, especially
evangelical, charismatic, and spiritualist sects. The Dominican Roman Catholic Church was historically
conservative and traditionalist; in general it supported the status quo
and the existing power structure. The Roman Catholic Church was weak
institutionally, however, with few priests (fewer than 200 in the entire
country), little land, few educational or social institutions, and
little influence over the daily lives of most Dominicans.
Since the 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church had ceased to identify
wholly with the status quo. Rather, it tended to stand for moderate
change. It organized mainstream Catholic political parties, trade
unions, student groups, peasant leagues, and businessmen's associations.
Liberation theology had made few inroads in the Dominican Republic. A
few priests espoused liberationist ideas, but they were not considered
to be in the mainstream of the clergy. Nor had there been calls by
church officials for an alliance with Marxist groups, let alone calls
for guerrilla struggles or other militant action against the system.
As the Dominican Republic modernized and secularized, the church lost
some of its influence. The country had legalized divorce in 1963 and had
instituted government-sponsored family planning in 1967, two measures
the church had opposed. The church seldom succeeded in mobilizing voters
in support of its favored programs. With only about 10 percent of the
population engaged as active, practicing Catholics, and with Protestant
groups continuing to grow rapidly, political scientists estimated that
the church had gone from being one of the top three most influential
interest groups, in past decades, to about the sixth or the seventh by
the late 1980s.
Dominican Republic - Economic Elites
Traditionally the forgotten sector of Dominican society, the peasants
were largely illiterate, unorganized, and politically inarticulate.
Although numerically the largest group in Dominican society, politically
they were the weakest.
By the late 1980s, however, vast changes had begun to occur, even in
the Dominican countryside. For example, in 1960 the country was 70
percent rural and 30 percent urban, but as 1990 approached those
percentages had been reversed. In the intervening decades, millions of
peasants had left the harsh life of the countryside behind for the
somewhat more promising life of the cities; many others had emigrated,
mainly to Puerto Rico and the United States.
In addition, mobilization and organization had begun in the
countryside. The requirement that voters be literate had been struck
down in 1962. Peasants voted regularly and in high numbers, usually
splitting their votes between liberal and conservative candidates.
Beginning in the early 1960s, Peace Corps volunteers, political party
officials, community organizers, students, missionaries, and government
officials had been fanning out into the countryside organizing the
peasants, soliciting their votes, and generally mobilizing them. Modern
communications--radio, even television--also reached the countryside,
and, along with numerous farm-to-market roads, they had helped ease the
isolation of rural life.
Numerous peasant cooperatives and associations had also sprung up.
Like the unions and the student groups, most of these were associated
with the main political parties: Bosch's PLD, the PRD, and the Social
Christian Reformist Party, (Partido Reformista Social Cristiano--PRSC;
also referred to as the Christian Democrats). Balaguer also attracted
widespread support among the peasants because they associated his rule
with peace, stability, and prosperity. In highly paternalistic fashion,
and with great publicity, Balaguer also made a point of handing out land
titles to peasants for lands formerly belonging to Trujillo. Despite the
upswing in their political activities, however, the peasants were still
not effectively organized, and they seldom managed to influence national
policy making.
Dominican Republic - Middle Class
By the 1980s, Dominican society no longer consisted of a small landed
elite at the top and a huge mass of peasants at the bottom, with almost
no one in between. In large part, as a result of the economic
development and modernization that had occurred since the end of the
Great Depression, a sizable middle class, constituting 30 to 35 percent
of the population, had emerged.
The middle class consisted of shopkeepers, government officials,
clerks, military personnel, white-collar workers of all kinds, teachers,
professionals, and the better paid members of the working class. Most of
the middle class resided in Santo Domingo, but secondary cities like
Santiago, Barahona, Monte Cristi, La Romana, San Francisco de Macor�s,
and San Pedro de Macor�s had also developed sizable middle-class
populations.
The middle class, not the oligarchy, had come to predominate within
the country's major political institutions: the Roman Catholic Church,
the military officer corps, the government service, the political
parties, interest groups, and even the trade union leadership. However,
the middle class was often divided on social and political issues.
Generally, its members advocated peace, order, stability, and economic
progress. It backed Balaguer in the late 1960s and the early 1970s
because he was thought to stand for those things that the middle class
wanted; later it supported the PRD governments of Guzm�n and Jorge for
the same reason. The middle class used to support authoritarian
governments because it thought they would best protect its interests; in
the 1980s, however, the middle-class consensus generally supported
democracy as the best way to preserve stability and to sustain
development.
Dominican Republic - The Bureaucracy
The Dominican Republic is a relatively small and weak country,
heavily dependent on the outside world economically and strategically,
and located in the center of one of the world's most important areas of
East-West and North-South conflict--the volatile Caribbean. For these
reasons, various outside actors have long exercised a significant degree
of influence in the island nation's internal politics.
In the early nineteenth century, the principal outside actors were
Spain, France, and Britain; toward the end of the century, Germany and
the United States had also become involved in Dominican affairs. Because
the Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, and
because Haiti represented a constant threat to the Dominican Republic,
both before and after the Haitian occupation of 1822-44, Haiti also
exerted significant influence.
A variety of transnational actors have played a significant role in
Dominican politics. Transnational actors had no single national
identity; they transcended national boundaries, but had local influence
nonetheless. They included multinational corporations, the Socialist
International (the international grouping of social democratic parties
highly involved in Dominican affairs during the 1970s and the 1980s),
the Vatican, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Christian Democratic
International, among others.
Many of these agencies, or the embassies of such countries as the
United States or Haiti, played a role not only in Dominican
international affairs, but in the country's internal affairs as well.
Some of them tried to influence national politics; they maintained
programs (scholarships, travel awards, etc.) to attract and to influence
young people, labor leaders, and government officials. In many ways,
they functioned almost like domestic interest groups. In a small, weak,
and dependent country like the Dominican Republic, the influence of
outside actors was often considerable.
Dominican Republic - Political Parties
Political parties and a political party system in the modern sense
had a very short history in the Dominican Republic, dating back only to
the early 1960s. Most parties were weakly organized, had weak and
inexperienced political leadership, were neither very ideological nor
programmatic, and were generally based on personalistic followings
rather than on concrete programs.
Beginning in the mid-1960s, two main parties, or movements, had
dominated Dominican politics. These were the PRD and the Reformist Party
(Partido Reformista--PR). Both these parties had gone through several
reorganizations.
The PRD had been founded in 1939 by exiles from the Trujillo
dictatorship. It functioned as an exiled organization for twentytwo
years, before returning to the Dominican Republic in 1961 after
Trujillo's assassination.
In the late 1980s, the PRD was a left-of-center, democratic political
party. Strongly oriented toward social justice, it sought to assist
peasants and workers. Although nationalistic, the PRD belonged to the
Socialist International. Its platform supported both political and
economic democracy. A strongly reformist party, the PRD nonetheless was
committed to implementing change through democratic means.
On the strength of this program, the PRD, led by the charismatic Juan
Bosch, had won the 1962 election, the freest in the country's history,
by a two-to-one margin. Bosch was overthrown, however, after only seven
months in office. The PRD organized a constitutionalist revolt, in 1965,
aimed at restoring democratic government, but the revolution was put
down militarily by the United States, an action that made Bosch and many
PRD leaders bitterly resentful of the United States. Perceived as a
symbol of instability and revolution, Bosch lost the 1966 election to
Balaguer. For the next twelve years, the PRD went into eclipse; it
functioned primarily as the Dominican Republic's largest opposition
party. After a major split, Bosch left to form his own, more radical,
PLD.
In 1978, under Guzm�n, and again in 1982 under Jorge, the PRD won
the national elections. It governed moderately and without the rancor of
the past, but as it tried to put its social program into effect, it ran
up against the constraints of austerity.
The PRD had a clear ideological program and was the best organized
political party in the country; however, it was torn by personal and
ideological differences. Pitted against each other were its right wing,
led by Majluta; its center, led by Jorge; and its left wing, led by Jos�
Francisco Pe�a G�mez. These differences became even more pronounced in
1989. Former president Jorge was indicted for corruption, and hence his
popularity plummeted; Majluta was neither trusted nor respected by many
in the party and the nation; and Pe�a G�mez was reportedly
contemplating the launching of his own independent movement, which would
further split the PRD. A number of younger leaders, such as Jorge proteg�
Hatuey de Camps Jim�nez, also rose to prominence within the party in
the 1980s. When unified, the PRD was usually strong enough to win
elections, but when divided it usually lost. After the death of
Trujillo, the PRD was divided more often than it was unified.
The other major party was the PR, the personal machine of President
Balaguer. More conservative than the PRD, the PR lacked a clear-cut
program. It consisted of officeholders, job seekers, and persons loyal
to Balaguer. The PR functioned more as a patronage mechanism than as a
party with an identifiable ideology. Balaguer used this political
machine to win elections in 1966, 1970, and 1974. The PR dispensed jobs
and favors and, in general, helped him to govern.
In 1985 Balaguer promoted a union between the PR and the
Revolutionary Social Christian Party (Partido Revolucionario Social
Cristiano--PRSC). The PRSC was the established Christian Democratic
party in the country; it was widely respected, but it had little
electoral strength. Balaguer gave the PRSC the leadership and the
electoral support that it had lacked. The PRSC, in turn, gave Balaguer
the support of its trade union, student, and peasant organizations; its
legitimacy as a serious Christian Democratic party; and its connections
with the Christian Democratic International. The new party designated
itself the Social Christian Reformist Party (Partido Reformista Social
Cristiano--PRSC), changing its name slightly, but retaining the old
initials. The PRSC won the 1986 election by a slim margin over the PRD.
The third major party, Bosch's PLD, won 18 percent of the vote in
1986. It was more radical than the PRD and more antiUnited States. Its
program called for the establishment of a "revolutionary
dictatorship" and for close relations with Cuba and the Soviet
Union. The PLD appealed to young people and to those whose disaffection
with the prevailing social, political, and economic system in the
Dominican Republic had reached an extreme degree; it gained popular
support during the 1980s as a result of the country's manifold economic
and political problems.
Balaguer and Bosch had long been personal, as well as political and
ideological, rivals. Indeed, by 1989 these two men had been jousting
with each other politically for some fifty years. In 1989 both were in
their eighties. They were the two main protagonists, the two rival
caudillos, of modern Dominican politics. Their rivalry delineated the
overlap between traditional personalism and modern party politics.
The Dominican Republic's several minor parties were weakly organized,
and they usually represented the personal followings of individual
caudillos. In the 1986 election, none of these parties received as much
as 1 percent of the vote, which made their eligibility to compete in
future elections questionable. Several of these personal machines were
simply testing the political waters in 1986, and they might come back in
reorganized form in future elections. Another possibility was that their
leaders might try to merge their organizations with the larger parties,
or perhaps themselves become the candidates of the larger parties. These
relations illustrated the fluidity and the lack of institutionalization
of the Dominican party system.
The extreme-left and communist parties never had much of a popular
following. Bosch's formation of the PLD further undermined the potential
support of the extreme left. Many Dominican peasants were conservative
rather than radical, and the weak unions were increasingly oriented
toward "bread-and-butter" issues rather than revolutionary
action. In addition, the close ties of the Dominican Republic to the
United States and the absence of widespread class conflict among
Dominicans--Haitians formed the cane-cutting "proletariat" in
the countryside, and, therefore, the potential for class conflict was
sapped by racial, cultural, and nationalistic considerations--further
diminished the possibility of a strong communist movement.
The two main far-left parties were the Communist Party of the
Dominican Republic (Partido Comunista de la Rep�blica Dominicana-
-Pacoredo)--a splinter group of the Dominican Communist Party (Partido
Comunista Dominicano--PCD)--and the Socialist Bloc (Bloque
Socialista--BS). These two parties chose not to field candidates in the
1986 election, in part because doing so would have revealed their weak
electoral appeal. The Moscow-line PCD did enter the 1986 election, and
it received only 4,756 votes-- considerably less than 1 percent of the
total. Nevertheless, all the far-left parties actively criticized the
PRD and the PRSC and publicly presented their own points of view. The
communist parties had little popular following in their own right, but
by attaching themselves to the nationalistic Bosch and the PLD they
could conceivably wield influence out of proportion to their numbers.
Some signs indicated that a basic and more stable two-party system,
consisting of the left-of-center PRD and the right-of- center PRSC,
might be evolving in the Dominican Republic in the late 1980s. A
two-and-a-half party system, with the PLD joining these other two,
represented another possibility. Nevertheless, the political system
continued to be quite fluid; personalities still counted at least as
much as parties. Other routes to power existed besides party activism
and elections; therefore, the consolidation of a stable, functioning
party system could not yet be taken for granted.
Dominican Republic - The Mass Media
Beginning in the early 1960s, the Dominican Republic experienced a
communications revolution. The spread of radio, television, and
newspapers awakened the previously isolated countryside, stimulated
rapid urbanization, and led to the political mobilization of millions of
people who had never participated in politics before. In addition, since
Trujillo's death in 1961, the Dominican media had been among the freest
of all those in Latin America.
There were 123 radio stations--115 commercial and 8
government-sponsored--operating in the country in 1989. Of these,
thirty-four stations operated in the capital city alone, and half that
number broadcasted from the second city, Santiago. Most other secondary
cities had several radio stations. All stations were
government-licensed. The Dominican Republic's large number of stations
ensured that every part of the island was accessible to radio
broadcasting.
The advent of cheap transistor radios in the early 1960s ushered in
the communications revolution. Even poor peasants, eking out a
subsistence living, could afford such a radio. Transistor radios brought
in the political news from the capital city and thus helped to integrate
rural elements into the national political life for the first time. Just
as important, they also exposed Dominicans to the culture, the behavior,
and the music of the outside world.
There were eighteen television channels, operated by six companies in
1989; two channels were government-owned, and sixteen were private. All
were government-licensed. Although most Dominicans could not afford a
set of their own, those who did not own one often watched at neighbors'
houses or in public places, such as bars or shops. Thanks to relay
stations, television broadcasts originating in Santo Domingo could be
transmitted to the interior.
The main newspapers were El Caribe and List�n Diario.
Both were dailies, published in the capital city, and both had
circulations over 30,000. El Caribe was moderate and
nationalistic; it was, for a long time, the main newspaper in the
country. List�n Diario, founded in 1889 and published
intermittently thereafter, was most recently revived in 1964. It was
more reformist and more critical of the government. It established a
reputation as a crusading paper and soon matched El Caribe in
circulation.
Other major Santo Domingo newspapers were El Tiempo, El
Nacional, and �ltima Hora. El Tiempo was
conservative, El Nacional was more crusading and nationalistic,
and �ltima Hora had been launched by List�n Diario
as an afternoon newspaper to challenge El Nacional. In Santiago
there were two main newspapers: La Informaci�n, a conservative
afternoon paper, and El Sol, a moderate morning paper. Other
cities had smaller papers, focused mainly on local news. The big
circulation dailies all received the major wire services--Associated
Press (AP), United Press International (UPI), Reuters, and others. As a
result, their international coverage was often quite extensive. The
largest weekly newsmagazine in the country was Ahora, which was
owned by El Nacional.
Each main political party published its own small newspaper and aired
its own radio program. The major trade unions, professional
associations, and interest groups also produced their own newspapers,
although they often published sporadically, and some maintained public
relations offices. The armed forces operated its own radio station, and
the Roman Catholic Church owned and operated several radio stations and
small newspapers. The Voice of America was widely listened to; Radio
Havana and Radio Moscow also beamed broadcasts that could be heard
throughout the country.
Although the coverage of news stories was not always entirely
professional, and although there had been attempts by government and the
military over the years to intimidate, or even to close down, some
papers and stations, by and large the Dominican media had been
remarkably free, independent, and diverse since 1961. They performed an
important educational function in the country, and they exerted an
important influence in mobilizing the country politically. In fact, the
mass media had become one of the most important bulwarks of Dominican
democracy.
Dominican Republic - FOREIGN RELATIONS
The Dominican Republic maintained very limited relations with most of
the countries of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. It
had little commerce, tourist trade, or diplomatic contact with most of
these nations, and hence little reason for an embassy or mission. The
Dominican Republic was not a global power with global responsibilities;
nor, as a poor country, could it afford to maintain widespread
diplomatic representation.
The Dominican Republic concentrated its diplomatic activities in four
critical arenas: the circum-Caribbean, Latin America, the United States,
and Western Europe. It belonged to the Organization of American States
(OAS), the United Nations (UN), and other international bodies.
Although the Dominican Republic shares the island of Hispaniola with
Haiti, traditionally relations between the two countries have seldom
been good. In the nineteenth century, Haiti repeatedly invaded,
plundered, and occupied the Dominican Republic. In addition, Dominicans
tended to see Haiti as black, African, and uncivilized, in contrast to
their own country, which they considered Hispanic and European.
When political troubles flared up in Haiti, Dominican governments
usually mobilized the armed forces and put them on alert. Haitian
political exiles often settled in Santo Domingo, which they used as a
springboard for their partisan activities. Numerous Dominican
governments had also tried to influence political events in Haiti. The
border between the two countries had been closed on a number of
occasions.
Over the years, higher salaries and better living conditions had
induced many Haitians to settle in the Dominican Republic. Dominicans
would express resentment of this Haitianization, but at the same time
they depended on Haitian labor. This was particularly true during the
cane-cutting season, when thousands of Haitians were trucked in, kept in
miserable labor camps, and then trucked back (although some remained
behind, melding into the local population). The practice commonly gave
rise to human rights abuses, and the term "slavery" was
sometimes used when changes were raised in some international bodies.
Little trade or commerce existed between the Dominican Republic and
Haiti. Each eyed the other's politics warily and often tried to
influence the outcome. Because of the complex racial, cultural, and
social disparities between the two nations, it seemed doubtful that
relations between the two countries would ever be friendly.
Dominican relations with the nearby island of Puerto Rico were quite
good. A considerable amount of commercial trade, tourism, and investment
activity took place between the two islands. Many Dominicans emigrated
to Puerto Rico, where they generally enjoyed better jobs, salaries, and
benefits. A lively-- and dangerous--traffic existed in small boats that
traversed the Mona Passage, by night, carrying illegal Dominican emigr�s
to Puerto Rican shores. Puerto Rico's links to the United States through
its commonwealth status also facilitated the migration of Dominicans to
the United States mainland.
Many Puerto Ricans had invested in the Dominican Republic or owned
weekend cottages there. At the same time, the large Dominican population
in Puerto Rico was used by some as evidence to support the charge that
Dominicans were taking jobs away from Puerto Ricans.
Despite a few minor points of contention, relations between the
Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico were generally stable and amiable. In
contrast, the Dominicans had an uneasy, and still largely informal,
relationship with Cuba. The Dominican Republic had broken diplomatic
relations with Cuba in 1962; on several subsequent occasions, Cuba
sought to promote revolution in the Dominican Republic. With the growth
of the Dominican economy in the 1970s, however, the Dominican Republic
surpassed Cuba in per capita gross domestic product (GDP), reversing the two nations' traditional relative positions. By
the late 1980s, the Dominicans dealt with Cuba from a position of
strength rather than weakness, but they remained wary of Cuban military
strength and the possibilities of Cuban subversion.
During the 1980s, the contacts between Cuba and the Dominican
Republic increased: there were both sports and cultural exchanges. Most
of these contacts were informal, but some official contacts between
government representatives of the two countries also took place. For
Cuba these exchanges formed part of its hemispheric-wide efforts to
break out of the relative diplomatic and commercial isolation in which
it existed after 1962 and to overcome the United States economic
blockade. For the Dominican Republic, a flirtation with Cuba served to
keep the domestic left from criticizing the government; it also put
pressure on the United States, which in the 1980s did not favor
normalization of relations with Cuba. One major impediment to closer
ties was the competition of the two island nations in world sugar
markets, a situation hardly calculated to encourage cooperation.
By 1989 the Dominican Republic had become more closely involved in
the larger political and economic developments of the circum-Caribbean.
It maintained close relations with Venezuela, with which it had
important trade links. Its relations with the smaller, formerly British,
Caribbean islands (including Jamaica) were also closer than they had
been previously, and they included observer status in the Caribbean
Community and Common Market (Caricom).
The Dominican Republic avoided too deep an involvement in the Central
American imbroglios. It had offered its good offices and had served as
an intermediary and peacemaker in some facets of the conflict. Not
wanting to jeopardize its relations with Mexico, the Central American
nations, or the United States, however, it had stayed aloof from the
more controversial aspects of the various Central American conflicts.
Dominicans were resentful when Nicaragua used its Soviet, East European,
and "non-aligned" connections to beat out the Dominican
Republic for a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
The Dominican Republic's most important relations were with the
United States. Politically, economically, and strategically, the
Dominican Republic was more dependent on the United States than it was
on any other nation. The United States maintained the largest embassy,
by far, in Santo Domingo, and the Dominican embassy in Washington was
the country's most important.
Dominicans sometimes resented the large United States presence in
their country and the condescending and patronizing attitudes of some
Americans. They also resented United States intervention in their
internal affairs, particularly the military intervention of 1965. But
most Dominicans strongly liked and admired the United States, wanted to
travel or emigrate there, and had gotten used to the influence of the
United States embassy in their country. Although Dominicans did not
appreciate United States interference, they also feared United States
inaction in regional affairs. Over the years, most Dominican politicians
had determined that the prudent course was to make accommodations with
the United States. In recent years, however, this relationship of
dependence had become more one of bilateral interdependence.
The Dominican Republic maintained good relations with the nations of
Western Europe and tried to increase trade with that region as a way of
diversifying its economic relations. Cultural and political links were
also important. The leading West European nations with interests in the
Dominican Republic were the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany),
which significantly increased its exchange programs during the 1980s;
Spain, for reasons of culture and language, as well as the Spaniards'
generally more visible and active foreign policy in Latin America; and
France, because of cultural and economic relations.
Among Asian nations, Japan had become a significant commercial
presence in the 1980s, but it had little interest in political or
strategic matters. The Republic of China (Taiwan) had extensive
commercial and diplomatic relations. Similarly, Israel had provided aid
and technical assistance and maintained some commercial, cultural, and
diplomatic ties. In return, the Israelis often counted on the Dominican
Republic to support their positions in international fora.
The Dominican Republic was a signatory to the Charter of the OAS, the
Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (the Rio Treaty), the
Pact of Bogot�, and all major inter-American conventions. Historically,
its ties to, and involvement in, the OAS had been stronger than its
relations with the UN.
The Dominican Republic was a member of the UN, its Economic
Commission for Latin America (ECLA), and its Education, Scientific, and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the International Labour Organisation
(ILO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Court
of Justice. It subscribed to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the
World Bank, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the
Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the International Development
Association (IDA). It was a participant in the International Civil
Aviation Organization (ICAO), the Universal Postal Union (UPU), and the
International Telecommunications Union (ITU). It was also a member of
the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Postal Union of the
Americas and Spain, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
In the 1980s, the Dominicans have actively sought leadership roles in
international organizations. This trend, along with the establishment of
new diplomatic and economic ties, prompted debate throughout the country
on issues of foreign policy and strategic relations. Such an awareness
of world affairs was understandable in a country the identity,
development, and direction of which were, in considerable measure, the
result of external influences.
