Constituting Socialism for the Twenty-First Century: Examining Cuba's 2019 Constitution

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.13.2.0303
• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Date: 01 December 2021
• Pages: 303-330
• Author: Mark Ginsburg
• Subject Matter: Cuba's 2019 Constitution,twenty-first-century socialism,participative democracy,social ownership of means of production,internationalism,educating for full human development

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ACADEMIC ARTICLE

CONSTITUTING SOCIALISM FOR THE

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: EXAMINING

CUBA’S 2019 CONSTITUTION

Mark Ginsburg

University of Maryland

Mark Ginsburg is a Visiting Scholar in the International Education Policy program at

University of Maryland (USA). Although he is now retired, he continues to work with

graduate students on their research. He has also served on the faculty at the University of

Aston (Birmingham, England); University of Houston; University of Pittsburgh; University

of Oslo (Norway); Teachers College, Columbia University; Kobe University (Japan); George

Washington University; and Universidad de Ciencias Pedagógicas “Enrique José Varona”

(Cuba). Previously, he was president of the Comparative and International Education Society

(CIES, 1991–2) and coeditor of the Comparative Education Review (2003–13). He has (co)

authored or (co)edited eight books, five special issues of journals, and over 140 journal

articles and book chapters.

Abstract

This article summarises the results of a qualitative content analysis of the 2019 Cuban

Constitution, approved in a national referendum on 24 February 2019, and compares

Cuba’s constitutionally identified structures and processes with those highlighted

as core characteristics of what has been termed twenty-first-century socialism. The

article draws mainly on the work of Marta Harnecker (2010 and 2015), who includes

the following features of twenty-first-century socialism: a) promoting participative

democracy; b) creating the political instrument needed to lead the transition;

c) instituting social ownership of the means of production; d) organising the economy

toward satisfying human needs; e) having a decentralised (but aggregating) planned

economy (including establishing worker-organised production as well as conceiving

of efficiency as respect for nature and investment in full human development);

f) incorporating material and moral incentives; g) educating for full human development

304 ACADEMIC ARTICLE – MARK GINSBURG

InternatIonal Journal of Cuban StudIeS 13.2 WInter 2021

and cultural transformation; and h) building regional (and international) integration.

Cuba’s 2019 Constitution overall measures up well with respect to these characteristics.

The article concludes that Cuba’s 2019 Constitution identifies structures and processes

that are in line with the characteristics of twenty-first-century socialism. There is also

evidence that Cuba represents a “unique model” (Burbach etal. 2013a), one that has

been evolving since the 1959 Revolution, including during the Special Period of the

1990s and during the decade prior to the 2019 Constitution being approved, and one

that has developed in the context of the US blockade and other hostile actions.

Keywords: Cuba’s 2019 Constitution, twenty-first-century socialism, participative

democracy, social ownership of means of production, internationalism, educating

for full human development

Introduction

In this article1 I examine relevant sections of the 2019 Constitution of the

Republic of Cuba, which came into effect on 10 April 2019 (Constitute Project

2019).2 Approximately six weeks earlier, on 24 February 2019, 90.2 percent of

the 8,705,723 eligible adult (age 16+) Cuban citizens went to the polls to partici-

pate in a referendum, in which 90.6% of those voting registered their approval

of the new Constitution. The 2019 Constitution replaces the 1976 Constitution,

which had previously been reformed by popular votes in 1978, 1992 and 2002.

The February 2019 referendum had been preceded by 133,681 community- and

group-based popular consultations (August–November 2018), during which

1,708,997 proposals were made for revisions, and by extensive debate and a

vote by the National Assembly of People’s Power in December 2018 (Granma,

26 February 2019; see also Yaffe 2020: 250–1).

1 Paper prepared for presentation as part of the thematic track, 21st Century Socialism

and Education: Global Alternatives to Patriarchy, Racialized Capitalism, and Climate

Change, organized for the (COVID-19 cancelled) Comparative and International

Education Society (CIES) annual conference, Miami, March 2020, and then presented

at the 2021 CIES (virtual) conference, Seattle, 25–29 April 2021.

2 Cuba’s 2019 Constitution includes 229 articles organized into eleven titles. The analy-

sis presented in this article focuses on the Preamble and selected, relevant articles in

six of the titles of the Constitution: Political Foundations; Economic Foundations;

Principles of Educational, Scientific and Cultural Policy; Rights, Duties, and

Guarantees; Structure of the [National] State; and Electoral System. The five other

titles of the 2019 Constitution, which were reviewed but not analysed in depth for

this article, are: Citizenship; State Territorial Organization; Local Organs of People’s

Power; Defense and National Security; and Reform of the Constitution.