ABSTRACT
It is important to recognize that globalization is an ongoing historical process linked to the requirements and conditions necessary for capital accumulation and expansion. The main focus of the multilateral institutions was to set the Jamaican political and intellectual framework for policy and decision making within parameters befitting the requirements of the hegemonic neoliberal strategy. Neoliberalism through structural adjustment has fundamentally reduced the quality of democracy in Jamaica by imposing the principle of the unregulated free market. The new framework of structural adjustment has redefined the rights, powers, and capacity of the Jamaican state. Reliance on economic efficiency as structural adjustment takes its course has led to a rise in poverty, erosion of labor rights, and social exclusion in Jamaica. There are those who have benefited from structural adjustment, but they constitute a minority who has gained lavishly at the expense of the vast majority of Jamaicans.
