Abstract

Violet Eudine Barriteau

Macro Economic Policy and Changing Relations of Gender in a Transitioning Caribbean State

January 11th 2008

	This paper investigates and critiques the reorientation and reformulation of macroeconomic policy in Barbados a Caribbean state, after the imposition of an IMF sponsored stabilization and structural adjustment programme. I use the introduction of the IMF programme as a point of entry to examine the creation of macroeconomic policy designed to transform the economy. The Barbadian state and economy, widely regarded as a model in the Commonwealth Caribbean has seemingly become seduced by the approach to development advocated by the World Bank. It has adopted almost wholesale the vision of development prescribed by the Bank for micro states navigating globalization. Towards showing the convergence in policies between that of the Barbadian state and the Bank, I critique the Barbados National Strategic Plan against the World Bank’s Report on Development for the Caribbean in the 21st Century. My analysis demonstrates two key issues: 1)  that the Barbadian state has subsumed (maybe abandoned) the any attention to or interest in power relations of gender whether analytically or descriptively; and, 2) that the Barbadian economy is in transition and the gender implications of this new orientation remains uncharted,  but contains differing adversities for women and men. This new gendered terrain contains particular harms for women since the state’s architecture remains resiliently patriarchal. There are clear signs within the state and civil society that gender differentials are being interpreted as only affecting men negatively.