Will Raúl Castro bring democracy to Cuba?
I doubt that Raúl will bring to Cuba democracy as Americans know it and want it. However, I do think he’s likely to oversee limited market reforms and possibly greater political tolerance. But this doesn’t mean that the Cubans will give up the system that they’ve known for a half a century. Raúl is pragmatic, and he delegates authority much more than Fidel. Younger people will be brought more into the leadership, a trend under way since Soviet ties ended. What kind of cultural shifts do you see in international perceptions and in U.S. perceptions of Cuba? Most of the world is much more open to Cuba than the United States is. Washington’s stance is mostly shaped by the rich and powerful Cuban-Americans in Miami, who are very well organized. They left Cuba soon after Fidel assumed power, are deeply anti-Castro, and advocate as impermeable a wall across the Florida Straits as possible, on the supposition that the regime would thereby collapse. Through political action committees, lobbying
