{"id":2724,"date":"2025-06-16T13:13:39","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T13:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.backerinlaw.com\/Site\/?page_id=2724"},"modified":"2025-06-16T13:13:39","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T13:13:39","slug":"2025-published-articles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.backerinlaw.com\/Site\/2025-published-articles\/","title":{"rendered":"2025 Published Articles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer, “Cuba and the Constitution of a Stable State of Misery: Ideology, Economic Policy, and Popular Discipline, Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs<\/em> 13(2):1-84 (2025)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Download HERE: ; OR Access HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Abstract: The general default position of much commentary on the State of Cuba\u2019s political model tends to be premised on an assumption of instability in need of repair. For decades some of the most creative minds on the planet have devoted tremendous amount of creative capital on solutions to the Cuban problem. This contribution suggests that what appears to be a state of instability and flux is actually becoming a stable state of misery. That stable state, in turn, suggests that control can be maintained as much on the basis of a premise of prosperity as it can on the basis of a reality of misery just challenging enough to keep a population really well managed and the political system reasonably well ordered. It is to consideration of hints about the nature and character of this stable state that this essay is directed. These hints are organized in three parts. The first, the ideological element, considers the way that that morality of consumerism developed over the decades by Fidel Castro and incorporated into the organic documents of the Cuban political economic model helped shape an approach to the role of material goods in a \u201crevolutionary\u201d society in ways that made collective misery\u2014at some level\u2014both tolerable and strategically useful. The second looks to the political-economic element. That is, it considers the ways in which the underlying consumerist morality of the political-economic model finds expression in the practices and policies of the State apparatus guided by the Party and its own governance apparatus. The contribution considers this from the interests of three significant groups with substantial engagement with Cuba. The first include states and other foreign lenders. The second includes the apparatus of the Cuban state itself and the elaboration of a dual character economy. And the third touches on Cuba\u2019s projection into the world, especially in the shadow of its quite useful relationship with the United States. The third then considers the utility of periodic popular explosion as the disciplinary factor for gauging the limits of misery tolerable by the body politic. This inverts the usual discourse of popular protest as a means of governance rather than in its more usual construction as some sort of pre-revolutionary signaling of the end of the current hegemony of the political-economic model that has shaped Cuban governance since the mid-1970s. \u00a0Table of Contents: 1. Introduction; 2. The Ideological Element; 2.1 Vignette 1: Fidel\u2019s Refrigerators: 2.2 Vignette 2: The State Ideology in the Shadow of Consumption and Globalization; 2.3 Vignette 3: Fidel\u2019s \u201cChildren\u201d and the Institutionalization of Ideologies of Misery; 3. The Political-Economic Element; 3.1 Vignette 4: The Phoenix of Stability From Out of Disaster; 3.2 Vignette 5: The Governance of Misery; 3.3 Vignette 6: Welcome to the Hunger Games and Global Lenders; 3.4 Vignette 7: The Hunger Games Part 2\u2014The Spy-Friends Edition; 3.5 Vignette 8: The Hunger Games Part 3\u2014The \u2018You\u2019ve Got a Friend in Me\u2019 Edition; 4. Popular explosion as the Disciplinary Factor; 4.1 Vignette 9: The Edges of Misery and the Misery of the Edges-11 July 2021; 4.2 Vignette 10; Even Protests Can be a Leninist Instrument; 4.3 Vignette 11: The Toleration f the Intolerable and the Search for a Stable State; 4.4 Vignette 12: The Swingling Pendulum; 5. Conclusion\u2003<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Resumen<\/em>: La postura general de muchos comentarios sobre el estado del modelo pol\u00edtico cubano tiende a basarse en el supuesto de una inestabilidad temporal que requiere reparaci\u00f3n. Durante d\u00e9cadas, algunas de las mentes m\u00e1s creativas del planeta han dedicado una enorme cantidad de capital creativo a buscar soluciones para el problema cubano. Esta contribuci\u00f3n sugiere que lo que parece ser un estado temporal de inestabilidad y fluctuaci\u00f3n se est\u00e1 convirtiendo en un estado estable de miseria. Ese estado estable, a su vez, sugiere que el control puede mantenerse tanto con base en la prosperidad b\u00e1sica como en una realidad de miseria lo suficientemente desafiante como para mantener una poblaci\u00f3n bien gestionada y un sistema pol\u00edtico razonablemente bien organizado. Este art\u00edculo examina los acontecimientos recientes en Cuba en busca de indicios sobre la naturaleza y el car\u00e1cter de este estado estable. Estos indicios se organizan en tres partes. Primero, el elemento ideol\u00f3gico, considera la moralidad del consumismo. Este marco conceptual, desarrollado a lo largo de d\u00e9cadas por Fidel Castro e incorporado a los documentos org\u00e1nicos del modelo pol\u00edtico-econ\u00f3mico cubano, contribuy\u00f3 a definir un enfoque sobre el papel de los bienes materiales en una sociedad “revolucionaria”, de manera que la miseria colectiva, en cierto grado, fuera tolerable y estrat\u00e9gicamente \u00fatil. El segundo aborda el elemento pol\u00edtico-econ\u00f3mico. Es decir, considera c\u00f3mo la moral consumista subyacente del modelo pol\u00edtico-econ\u00f3mico se expresa en las pr\u00e1cticas y pol\u00edticas del aparato estatal, guiado por el Partido Comunista y su propio aparato de gobierno. La contribuci\u00f3n considera esto desde los intereses de tres grupos significativos con un compromiso sustancial con Cuba. Uno incluye a los estados y otros prestamistas extranjeros. Otro incluye el propio aparato estatal cubano y la elaboraci\u00f3n de una econom\u00eda de doble car\u00e1cter. Y el \u00faltimo aborda la gesti\u00f3n de la narrativa de masas a trav\u00e9s de la proyecci\u00f3n de Cuba al mundo, especialmente a la sombra de su muy \u00fatil relaci\u00f3n con Estados Unidos. El tercero, a su vez, considera la utilidad de la explosi\u00f3n popular peri\u00f3dica como factor disciplinario para medir los l\u00edmites de la miseria tolerable para el pueblo cubano. Esto invierte el discurso habitual de la protesta popular como medio de gobernanza, en lugar de su interpretaci\u00f3n m\u00e1s habitual como una especie de se\u00f1al prerrevolucionaria del fin de la hegemon\u00eda actual del modelo pol\u00edtico-econ\u00f3mico que ha moldeado la gobernanza cubana desde mediados de la d\u00e9cada de 1970. \u00cdndice: 1. Introducci\u00f3n; 2. El elemento ideol\u00f3gico; 2.1 Vi\u00f1eta 1: Los refrigeradores de Fidel.; 2.2 Vi\u00f1eta 2: La ideolog\u00eda de Estado a la sombra del consumo y la globalizaci\u00f3n; 2.3 Vi\u00f1eta 3: Los \u201chijos\u201d de Fidel y la institucionalizaci\u00f3n de las ideolog\u00edas de la miseria; 3. El elemento pol\u00edtico-econ\u00f3mico; 3.1 Vi\u00f1eta 4: El f\u00e9nix de la estabilidad surgido del desastre.
3.2 Vi\u00f1eta 5: La gobernanza de la miseria; 3.3 Vi\u00f1eta 6: Bienvenidos a los Juegos del Hambre y a los prestamistas globales. 3.4 Vi\u00f1eta 7: Los Juegos del Hambre Parte 2: La Edici\u00f3n de los Amigos Esp\u00edas; 3.5 Vi\u00f1eta 8: Los Juegos del Hambre Parte 3: La Edici\u00f3n \u00abTienes un amigo en m\u00ed\u00bb; 4. La explosi\u00f3n popular como factor disciplinario; 4.1 Vi\u00f1eta 9: Los l\u00edmites de la miseria y la miseria de los l\u00edmites – 11 de julio de 2021; 4.2 Vi\u00f1eta 10: Incluso las protestas pueden ser un instrumento leninista; 4.3 Vi\u00f1eta 11: La tolerancia de lo intolerable y la b\u00fasqueda de un estado estable; 4.4 Vi\u00f1eta 12: El p\u00e9ndulo oscilante; 5. Conclusi\u00f3n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Larry Cat\u00e1 Backer, “Cuba and the Constitution of a Stable State of Misery: Ideology, Economic Policy, and Popular Discipline, Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs 13(2):1-84 (2025) Download HERE: ; OR Access HERE. Abstract: The general default position of much commentary on the State of Cuba\u2019s political model tends to be premised on … <\/p>\n

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