Renaturalising sovereignty 47
examines how EARM is subtly transforming Dominican sovereignty in the
Anthropocene.
Renaturalising sovereignty in the Anthropocene
In Dominica, despite promises of autonomy and freedom attached to political independence, the GCD has long grappled with the challenge of fulfilling
its biopolitical mandate while meeting externally imposed fiscal management measures. Prior to its 1978 independence, anti-colonial and nationalist
activists argued that political independence was the essential precondition
for economic self-sufficiency. These arguments, variants of Marxist dependency theory and pragmatic economic nationalism, suggested that independence would allow the state to engage international markets on its own
terms, rather than those of the British colonial office (André & Christian
2002). Set in their context, there was much to this argument: British colonial
administrators actively inhibited industrialisation across the Caribbean in
order to protect consumer markets for British manufacturers. Dominica’s
preferential trading status within European banana markets also created
an illusory sense of economic self-sufficiency that made political independence economically viable (Baker 1994). However, the WTO’s 1999 ‘banana
wars’ ruling shattered this illusion: Payne (2008, p. 300) emphasises that,
‘after all, Dominica’s crisis came to a head following the decision of a WTO
dispute panel at which the Caribbean banana-producing countries were not
even permitted to be present.’ Events such as the WTO ruling, and global
recessions in 2001–2003 and 2008 repeatedly drove home the hollowness of
political sovereignty in the contemporary global political economy (Bonilla
2015). Recent disaster events have compounded these fiscal struggles: while
2015’s Tropical Storm Erika caused economic losses in excess of 50% of the
state’s GDP, the back-to-back category 5 Hurricanes Irma and Maria (2017)
caused damages of 224% of the island’s GDP (Grove 2021).
Faced with negative growth and expanding debt, in 2002 the GCD
entered into a Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) with the IMF. The
SAP required macroeconomic stabilisation and long-term adjustment policies designed to reduce fiscal imbalances and orient the economy towards
long-term growth. It also mandated that the government prepare regular
Poverty Reduction Strategies Papers (PRSP), a common IMF and WB
technique to build local ownership of growth-oriented poverty reduction
development initiatives (Best 2014). The GCD’s first PRSP was prepared in
2004; subsequently, it rolled the PRSP into its master economic development plan, the Growth and Social Protection Strategy (GSPS), published
in 2006, 2008, 2012, and 2014. The GSPS expresses the ‘imperial logic of
growth’ (Sealey-Huggins 2017) that ties poverty reduction and sustainable
development to limitless growth: the inaugural GSPS emphasised that, ‘the
[GCD] intends to conduct prudent fiscal policy that is conducive to growth,
based on expenditure restraint, administrative modernizing and reform,
examines how EARM is subtly transforming Dominican sovereignty in the
Anthropocene.
Renaturalising sovereignty in the Anthropocene
In Dominica, despite promises of autonomy and freedom attached to political independence, the GCD has long grappled with the challenge of fulfilling
its biopolitical mandate while meeting externally imposed fiscal management measures. Prior to its 1978 independence, anti-colonial and nationalist
activists argued that political independence was the essential precondition
for economic self-sufficiency. These arguments, variants of Marxist dependency theory and pragmatic economic nationalism, suggested that independence would allow the state to engage international markets on its own
terms, rather than those of the British colonial office (André & Christian
2002). Set in their context, there was much to this argument: British colonial
administrators actively inhibited industrialisation across the Caribbean in
order to protect consumer markets for British manufacturers. Dominica’s
preferential trading status within European banana markets also created
an illusory sense of economic self-sufficiency that made political independence economically viable (Baker 1994). However, the WTO’s 1999 ‘banana
wars’ ruling shattered this illusion: Payne (2008, p. 300) emphasises that,
‘after all, Dominica’s crisis came to a head following the decision of a WTO
dispute panel at which the Caribbean banana-producing countries were not
even permitted to be present.’ Events such as the WTO ruling, and global
recessions in 2001–2003 and 2008 repeatedly drove home the hollowness of
political sovereignty in the contemporary global political economy (Bonilla
2015). Recent disaster events have compounded these fiscal struggles: while
2015’s Tropical Storm Erika caused economic losses in excess of 50% of the
state’s GDP, the back-to-back category 5 Hurricanes Irma and Maria (2017)
caused damages of 224% of the island’s GDP (Grove 2021).
Faced with negative growth and expanding debt, in 2002 the GCD
entered into a Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) with the IMF. The
SAP required macroeconomic stabilisation and long-term adjustment policies designed to reduce fiscal imbalances and orient the economy towards
long-term growth. It also mandated that the government prepare regular
Poverty Reduction Strategies Papers (PRSP), a common IMF and WB
technique to build local ownership of growth-oriented poverty reduction
development initiatives (Best 2014). The GCD’s first PRSP was prepared in
2004; subsequently, it rolled the PRSP into its master economic development plan, the Growth and Social Protection Strategy (GSPS), published
in 2006, 2008, 2012, and 2014. The GSPS expresses the ‘imperial logic of
growth’ (Sealey-Huggins 2017) that ties poverty reduction and sustainable
development to limitless growth: the inaugural GSPS emphasised that, ‘the
[GCD] intends to conduct prudent fiscal policy that is conducive to growth,
based on expenditure restraint, administrative modernizing and reform,