ABSTRACT
There is much controversy about the meaning and consequences of globalisation. There is a fairly widespread recognition, however, that the effects of globalisation are spread quite unevenly among and within states, and that there are many more victims than beneficiaries of the process. In the case of the Caribbean, globalisation has undoubtedly heightened the region's economic vulnerability to external trends with potentially dire consequences for some of its main export sectors. It has also ‘reconfigured’ the political and social networks of the Caribbean as the old links with metropolitan countries are transformed, and as new hemispheric relations multiply (Payne 1994). Finally, it has stimulated the formation of new multilateral structures and agreements as the region struggles to keep its footing in an international environment increasingly dominated by global and regional regimes.
