ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the inherent possibility and actual probability that Cuba meet with success at exporting one aspect or another of its political-economic institutions and behavior to various countries. A perusal of the development of political thought, parties, and movements in the Caribbean testifies to their rich diversity. Cuba's foreign policy perspective and judgmental criteria are founded on a mix of ideological international ambitions and concrete objectives, their relative weight, and the time dimension associated with policy implementation and goal attainment. The Cuban-Nicaraguan relation is a clearly denned one and responds to what are more clearly and sharply drawn ideological preferences on the part of the Sandinista government. The Cuban economic model has exhibited a good deal of variability and change. Cuba differs from other countries characterized by comparable situations of socioeconomic underdevelopment insofar as it has adopted the trappings of a contemporary totalitarian state. The Cuban political model contains not only dissimilar but actually disparate elements.
