This study is a sequel to one done by this writer on the foreign policy of Jamaica from 1972 to 1977 (Lewis, 1981) and covers the remaining period during which the People's National Party (PNP), led by Prime Minister Michael Manley, presided over the government of the country.

In elections held on October 30, 1980, the PNP government was decisively defeated by the opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). The latter had, in the previous elections of December 15, 1976, retained only 13 seats in Jamaica's parliament. When the Jamaica Labour Party administration took office, as the party had promised in its election manifesto, it reversed the central planks of the domestic and foreign policies of the PNP administration and reestablished a close relationship with the United States as the main element of its domestic and foreign policies.

An article written for my forthcoming book on Trinidad and Tobago argues that the events of 1969-1970 in Trinidad should be seen as a result of a process of delegitimization—both personal and systematic—and that the public declaration by Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister of his intention to resign as political leader of the governing party was an attempt to arrest that process. My argument is that the attempt failed, and that by December 1973,

In this analysis of contemporary economic and sociopolitical reality in the smaller states of the Commonwealth Caribbean— the so-called Lesser Developed Countries (LDCs) comprising Antigua, St. Kitts-Nevis and Montserrat (the Leeward Islands) and Dominica, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent (the Windward Islands)—developments within the larger CARICOM countries—namely Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Barbados—will be discussed. All too often social science analysis of the Commonwealth Caribbean assumes a great deal of homogeneity among all CARICOM countries, therefore concluding that what might be a correct analysis of Jamaica, for example, is equally applicable to any of the smaller territories. This article shows that this assumption is often erroneous and can produce several pitfalls in perspective, diagnosis, and prognosis.

During the 1970s there have been several concrete developments in the Commonwealth Caribbean presenting the intellectual community with unprecedented tasks of interpretation. Broadly, the decade began with the massive “black power” upheavals in Trinidad and Tobago and culminated with the revolutionary overthrow of the neocolonial Gairy regime next door in Grenada.

In view of Latin America's growing bargaining power within the international system, the Chilean Heraldo Muñoz (1981) has assessed the power potential of several Latin American states, basing his calculations on abstract statistics. According to this categorization, Colombia has a power potential comparable to that of Mexico, Argentina, and Venezuela. Colombians would probably be very surprised at such an analysis. As they see it, their country does not figure in international politics. Hence, the idea of a nation with a foreign nonpolicy (Drekonja-Kornat, 1982b) seems justified.

However, countries must adapt to new situations, and growing tensions in the Caribbean Basin are forcing Colombia to examine the apparent contradiction between its potential and its real capacity. This is particularly important when one considers that Colombia's low profile in foreign policy is not a product of abstentionist or neutral doctrines (as in the case of Canada, Switzerland, or Austria) but is the result of historical developments occurring after the secession of Panama.