Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic: Government and Politics
from the United States, including such organizations as the
American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations
(AFL-CIO) and Human Rights Watch, which played an
important role in applying pressure for passage of the 1992
Labor Code in the Dominican Republic. In addition, overseas
Dominicans must now be considered as important actors
within the Dominican Republic because their remittances are a
crucial source of foreign exchange and because Dominican
political parties avidly seek their funding. The Dominican
diaspora has also recently been given the right to vote in
Dominican presidential elections, even as the diaspora also is
beginning to have more of a presence in local politics in New
York City and elsewhere where its numbers are concentrated.
With regard to relations between the United States and the
Dominican Republic, in the past issues that were central
focused primarily on security concerns, protection of United
States private economic actors, and expectations of political
solidarity. Such issues are being increasingly superseded by new
issues related to market-oriented reforms, democracy and
human rights, drug trafficking, and migration. From the perspective
of the Dominican Republic, Dominican policy makers
worry that the country is marginal to the concerns of United
States policy makers; they also are concerned about unilateralism
and potential pressure by the United States, no longer
because of anticommunism, but as a consequence of issues
such as narcotics, democracy, and human rights. Finally, the
Fernandez government is putting forth efforts to enhance
hemispheric cooperation around such issues as trade and
respect for democracy.
As a small, economically vulnerable country, the Dominican
Republic has continually been forced to adapt to sudden
changes in the world economy. Globalization has had contradictory
effects on the country. On the one hand, it has generated
sometimes wrenching economic changes, weakening
previously strong popular-sector organizations and stimulating
further inequality, at least in the short term. The dramatic shift
away from sugar exports toward tourism and free-trade zones is
one example, as is the significant increase in emigration that
was spurred in the 1980s and continues to this day. On the
other hand, globalization has deepened the country's links to
the outside world, providing external support for organizations
committed to building or strengthening democratic accountability
within the country. This effect has been seen in the
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