| Chapter 1: | Jamaican Governance and Citizen Politics in Context |
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I will illustrate in this book that the Jamaican populace, often angered by what many people construe as political indifference and insensitivity, responds with violent expressions of popular protest. Though political dissatisfaction is often reflected in voter downturn, it is increasingly and explicitly being expressed through popular protest—roadblocks, picketing, arson, vandalism, police-citizen clashes, mushrooming levels of crime (particularly homicides), the lyrical verbalizing by a multitude of reggae artistes, and the almost constant maligning of the political class in the popular press (“Gangs Set Barricades,” 2010; Gray, 2004; “Letter of the Day—Beware of the Don,” 2006; “Under Fire,” 2005; “Willing to Die,” 2010; Meeks, 2000; Munroe, 1999). The overall picture of the state and civil society in Jamaica as contending forces that are seemingly unable to coexist comfortably with each other can look discouraging enough to trigger doubts as to whether the country is governable at all.
The current scholarly focus seems to end with the nature of state governance. Yet, citizen behavioral norms are inevitably implicated in the construction of new theoretical contours of governance and therefore warrant both empirical and theoretical attention. For example, exploring the extent to which criminal actors and other uncivil citizens are affecting the less tangible aspects of statehood such as authority and legitimacy is the current trend in the existing political writing on Jamaica (C. Charles, 2002; Figueroa & Sives, 2003; Gray, 2004; Harriott, 2000, 2003; Rapley,