“Educational Regionalization” and the Gated Global: The Construction of the Caribbean Educational Policy Space

This article draws on “regime theory,” particularly on the concepts of cooperation, compatibility of interests, and proclivity to compromise, to examine the rise of the Caribbean Educational Policy Space (CEPS). In making this argument, with the aid of a content analysis of 26 educational policies from the 15 member states of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), this article first locates the different policy mechanism of external effects, or policy tools, within the regional policy environment that governs and regulates education at the national level to explain how these policy tools and mechanisms have given rise to a very distinctive form of what I call educational regionalism that frames the regional educational policy space in the Caribbean. The data show that CARICOM utilized the noneconomic process of functional cooperation, and the policy tools of lesson drawing, policy externalization, and policy transfer to respond to pressures of globalization across three different policy cycles and concludes by discussing the implications of such a policy maneuver for the integrative project of economic regionalism

The Caribbean Educational Policy Space: Educational Gradualism, Zero-sum Policy Reforms, and Lesson-Drawing in Small (and Micro) States

This paper analyzes national educational policy discourse in ten of the now 15 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries and advances that the failed socialist experiments in the small (and micro states) of Guyana, Grenada, and Jamaica during the 1980s ultimately led to the creation of the Caribbean Educational Policy Space (CEPS). CEPS is intended to engender the movement of service, goods, labor, capital, and the right to establishment – i.e. CARICOM citizens may establish companies and business enterprises in any CARICOM nation and be treated as a local national. This discursively created space that employed the external delivery mechanism of ‘lesson-drawing’ through a gradualist approach to educational reforms at both the regional level and national level or what I call educational gradualism–a zero-sum policy reform maneuver that facilitates the creation of predefined educational outcomes. A summative content analysis shows that CEPS, an unintentional byproduct of educational gradualism, was discursively framed historically by the era of ideological pluralism, legally by the 2001 Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, substantively by the enactment of the Caribbean Single Market in 2006, and functionally through functional cooperation

El espacio del Caribe para la educación política: Gradualismo educativo, reformas políticas de suma cero y "lesson-drawing" en pequeños (y micro) estados.

This paper analyses national educational policy discourse in ten of the now 15 Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries and advances that the failed socialist experiments in the small (and micro states) of Guyana, Grenada, and Jamaica during the 1980s ultimately lead to the creation of the Caribbean Educational Policy Space (CEPS). CEPS is intended to engender the movement of service, goods, labor, capital, and the right to establishment – i.e. CARICOM citizens may establish companies and business enterprises in any CARICOM nation and be treated as a local national. This discursively created space employed the external delivery mechanism of ‘lesson-drawing’ through a gradualist approach to educational reforms at the both regional level and national level or what I call educational gradualism–a zero-sum policy reform maneuver that facilitates the creation of predefined educational outcomes. A summative content analysis shows that CEPS, an unintentional byproduct of educational gradualism, was discursively framed historically by the era of ideological pluralism, legally by the 2001 Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, substantively by the enactment of the Caribbean Single Market in 2006, and functionally through functional cooperationEste trabajo analiza el discurso nacional la política educativa de cada diez de los países ahora 15 Comunidad del Caribe (CARICOM) y avanza que los experimentos socialistas fallidos en los pequeños (y micro estados) de Guyana, Granada y Jamaica durante la década de 1980 en última instancia conducir a la creación de Espacio del Caribe para la Educación Política (CEPS). CEPS está destinado a generar el movimiento de servicio, los bienes, el trabajo, el capital y el derecho de establecimiento - es decir, los ciudadanos de la CARICOM pueden establecer empresas y empresas comerciales en cualquier nación CARICOM y ser tratado como un ciudadano local. Este espacio discursivamente creado emplea el mecanismo de entrega externa de ‘lección de dibujo’ a través de un enfoque gradual para las reformas educativas en el tanto a nivel regional como a nivel nacional o lo que yo llamo el gradualismo, una reforma de la política educativa maniobra de suma cero que facilita la creación de predefinido los resultados educativos. Un análisis de contenido sumativo muestra que CEPS, un subproducto no intencional de gradualismo educativa, se discursivamente enmarcado históricamente por la era del pluralismo ideológico, legalmente por el 2001 Tratado Revisado de Chaguaramas, sustantivamente por la promulgación del mercado único del Caribe en 2006, y funcionalmente a través cooperación funciona

Regimes Theory’ as an Approach to Understanding Educational Cooperation in CARICOM and Commonwealth Countries

This article discusses the implication of soft diplomacy in education, in the form of educational cooperation, for the governance of regimes. In drawing upon regime theory, it suggests that the Commonwealth should be viewed as a regime, and its survival is partly dependent upon how it uses educational cooperation to coordinate its functional areas, such as education. Moreover, educational cooperation at the transnational level is different from traditional South-South cooperation in that it is based on the coordination of hierarchic mechanisms. In drawing lessons from the experiences of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) project and extending them to the Commonwealth project, it argues that soft diplomacy, around perceived global norms, propels national educational agenda-setting attitudes. From this it follows that educational cooperation is the new order of things in an era defined by educational multistakeholderism where new regimes and institutions arise and coexist alongside other regimes. In other words, the Commonwealth must now retool itself in an era driven by regime complex(es) where it must coexist and compete with issue-specific regimes as well as complex entities which are comprised of more than one regime

Transregionalism and the Caribbean Higher Educational Space

This chapter sets out to survey the origins and consequences of the shift of a regional governance mechanism from an \u27immature\u27 to a \u27mature\u27 form of regionalism, and reflect on its influence on the coordination of activities of higher education across the Caribbean Community (CARICOM)1 leading to what can be referred to as \u27transregionalism\u272 . The central argument in this chapter is that: (I) the absence of supra-nationality within CARICOM\u27s governance structure led to what is referred to as a form of \u27immature regionalism\u27, where decisions made at the regional level were not necessarily implemented at the member state level; and that (2) what is referred to as \u27mature regionalism\u27 has emerged as a governance mechanism aimed at ensuring that regional decisions are implemented at the national level. In essence, the criterion of the \u27maturity\u27 of the regionalism is the degree to which policy decisions agreed upon at by Heads of Government, the highest decision making body, or by other institutions of CARICOM will be operationalized into the domestic laws of member states across the region

A Stitch in Time Saves Caribbeanization: Meta-steering and Strategic Coordination in an Era of Caribbean Trans-regionalism

This article sets out to theoretically explain the Caribbean Community’s (CARICOM) integrative stalemate. It argues that this needs to be studied in light of a changing regional, geographic, and geostrategic climate. A shift is occurring from ‘endogenous regionalism,’ which concentrates on the Caribbean’s historical past, to ‘exogenous regionalism,’ which focuses on creating a borderless Caribbean space and promotes Caribbeanization through the Caribbean Single Market (CSM), which came into force in 2006, and the stalemated Caribbean Single Economy (CSE). I argue that new trans-hemispheric relations are emerging and Caribbean regionalism is now both multi-centric—arising from actions in numerous places rather than a single center—and also multi-temporal. In this context, mature regionalism presages effective governance by focusing on deepening regional structures and institutional arrangements. I argue that trans-regionalism is a multidimensional process that moves away from the spill-over effects of trade policy harmonization and streamlines different political, security, economic, and cultural regimes. I conclude by suggesting that ‘meta-steering’ in the form of ‘strategic coordination’ or ‘first order response’ is but one way to perceive the paused regional project

Editorial - Beyond the COVID-19 Era: Psychological Resilience and E-safety in Education across Gulf States

This is an Editorial and does not have an abstract. Please download the PDF or view the article in HTML