The Reservation Model

Abstract

In a national referendum on February 24, 2019, Cubans overwhelmingly ratified a new constitution after an extensive process of public constitutional debates and consultation. This chapter focuses on the process and substances of the 2019 constitution-making. It demonstrates that the 2019 Constitution introduces progressive change to improve the socialist constitutional system and material wellbeing of the living conditions of the local people. Compared with the four other socialist countries this book considers, Cuba is characterized by the reservation model of socialist constitutional change. Constitutional change reserves unique features of Cuban Caribbean Marxism: the revolutionary commitment to communism and the praxis of “socialist democracy” in the form of mass rallies, consultations, and referenda. The adherence to Cuban Caribbean Marxism informs and legitimatizes the process and substances of constitutional change in this country.