ABSTRACT
Jamaica possesses some of the Caribbean's most breathtaking vistas. The third largest Caribbean island after Cuba and Hispaniola, Jamaica boasts steep wooded mountains, green fertile lowland fields, and white sandy beaches, all surrounded by the deep blue Caribbean Sea. A closer look behind this natural beauty, however, reveals a Jamaica with one of the Caribbean's most entrenched authoritarian-democratic governing systems. Since its 1962 independence from the British, Jamaica's governing elite have manipulated their Westminster parliamentary structures to place government decision-making in the hands of a small group of powerful political elite. The competition to attain Jamaican political power has degenerated into open, and often violent, warfare between the state's two principal political parties. Not surprisingly, the Jamaican governing elite's exploitation of political power has spawned serious problems with political corruption.
