ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief historical background and a description of major events in Dominican Republic. It also provides basic political, economic, and social data arranged in the following categories: polity, economy, population, purchasing power parities, life expectancy, ethnic groups, capital, political rights, civil liberties, and status. The chapter discusses the progress and decline of political rights and civil liberties in Dominican Republic. Citizens of the Dominican Republic can change their government through elections. Although the country has a history of fraudulent elections and the run-up to the May 2000 presidential elections was marked by heightened tension and outbreaks of interparty violence, the balloting was considered by international observers to have been free and fair. Civil society organizations in the Dominican Republic are some of the most well-organized and effective in Latin America. Haitians working in the Dominican Republic are subject to exploitation, harassment from the police, and deportation.
