The death of Fidel Castro on Friday is a reminder that the United States is not the only country going through a transition. In some Western democracies, the transition period is very short. For example, in countries like Canada and the United Kingdom, the main opposition party has a “shadow” cabinet. After an election in which power changes hands, it is typically a matter of days for the new Prime Minister to officially name the members of the new government (with only minor changes from the shadow cabinet). In the United Kingdom, this means that after a Thursday election, the new ministers take charge on the following Monday (assuming that there is not a hung parliament).
Transition periods are more complex in dictatorships (even ones that are nominally democratic). As Russia has proven over the past decades (and China proved before then), titles are less important than who really has the power. It has been eight years since Fidel officially stepped down and his brother Raul took over as President of Cuba. However, Raul is now 86 and has also stated that he will be stepping down at the end of his current term in 2018. The question is who comes next after Raul.
Cuba’s situation is not that different from other “revolutionary” states. It is fast approaching sixty years since the Cuban revolution. Through this point, the leaders of Cuba since the revolution were the leaders of the revolution. While the last of the revolutionary generation may try to hold to power for the next several years, the power will soon pass to the next generation. As noted above, official power and real power are very different things. In any government structure, there are key positions that matter. (Democracies tend to minimize the significance of these positions by traditions that prevent those holding those positions from seizing power through non-democratic means.) Those who hold these positions have to reach a consensus on who to put in the official “top” position, but these individuals retain significant influence over policy. (A good example of this influence was China in the 80s and 90s when Deng Xiaoping never held the official top positions, but was the clear leader of China.)
Because it takes time for things to settle down after such a change in the leadership of revolutionary states, transition periods allow other countries a chance to influence what emerges from that transition. There are two major schools of thought on the best way to undermine a dictatorship going through a transition period.
The first school of thought is that a transition is the best time to put direct pressure on the leadership and the country. Sanctions are increased. Any chance to gain an advantage diplomatically or in a territorial dispute is taken. The goal is to force the dictatorship to enact necessary reforms.
The second school of thought is that a transition gives an opportunity to undermine the dictatorship from within. Instead of increasing sanctions, they are relaxed. Rather than attempting to isolate and humiliate the dictatorship, there is diplomatic and economic engagement. The goal is to create a strong middle class with economic power outside the government control in an effort to reduce the government’s actual control over the county — and hopefully that political change will follow from economic change.
The problem is that neither model have many examples of complete success in terms of changing the internal politics of other countries. What is known is that the more that countries depend on international trade, the less likely they are to engage in policies that disrupt the trading system. From a “real” politics approach, attempting engagement is normally the better approach.
Which brings us back to the current transition in the U.S. Over the past eight years, the U.S. has been gradually moving towards engagement with Cuba. While not as crucial a voting block as it used to be, the Cuban exile community has been committed for most of the past fifty years to removing the current government of Cuba. Of course, just as the current leadership of Cuba is passing away having held to power, the first generation of exiles is also passing away. The newer generations, while still wishing for a democratic Cuba, are less committed to the sanctions approach. The issue for the Trump Administration will be whether to continue to Obama program of trying to regain influence inside of Cuba by creating economic ties or to go back to the failed sanctions policy. As Cuba is faced with choosing its next generation of leaders, the choice made by the Trump Administration may determine whether reformers or hard liners prevail inside Cuba.
