Thinking about Cuba’s civil society: 20 years after the debate of the 1990s – what has changed?

• In Event: Autonomía y posibilidades de actuación de la sociedad civil en el contexto cubano actual

Abstract

The paper will analyze the historical precedent of today’s discussions on the role, potential and limits of Cuba’s civil society: the debate of the mid-1990s when Cuban intellectuals diagnosed the island’s increasing social heterogeneity and proposed to “think civil society as a project” in the reform of Cuban socialism. In particular the paper will address the differences to the current Cuban debate and argue why the present discussion will be much more difficult to restrain than that of 20 years before.

Author

• Bert Hoffmann, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studie