Head versus heart: The ambiguities of non-sovereignty in the Dutch Caribbean

ABSTRACT

Whereas political scientists tend to make binary distinctions between sovereign states and subnational units, in recent decades the number of a third, hybrid category of federacies or non-sovereign jurisdictions has strongly increased. In this paper, we explore the benefits and downsides of non-sovereignty from the perspective of these territories’ inhabitants. We zoom in on the six islands of the Dutch Caribbean, which in 2010 experienced a profound change in their political status. Using data from two large-scale opinion surveys that we conducted in 1998 and 2015, respectively, we show that the population of the Dutch Caribbean islands maintains a highly ambiguous attitude towards the non-sovereign status. While many respondents appreciate the material benefits of the enduring link with the metropolis, there are significant emotional and ideational objections to this relationship. These findings are embedded in broader scholarly discussions about the position of decentralized and peripheral jurisdictions vis-à-vis their administrative core.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-sovereignty
• public opinion
• Dutch Caribbean
• asymmetric federalism
• federacy
• small island territories

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. While the latter three jurisdictions are also members of the United Nations, the Cook Islands and Niue are not. However, their independence in foreign relations is accepted by the United Nations.

2. Such inter-island tensions and insular separatism constitute a familiar pattern in archipelagic jurisdictions around the world (LaFlamme, 1983; Baldacchino and Hepburn, 2012).

3. Furthermore, the Caribbean countries have their own currencies, and the national currency of the former Netherlands Antilles, the Netherlands Antillean guilder, continues to be used in Curaçao and St. Maarten, while Aruba maintains its own currency, the Aruban florin. Since currency-related matters are usually arranged on the national level in federal states, the Kingdom can be deemed extremely decentralized in this respect. These currencies are tied not to the Euro but to the U.S. dollar, which is also the legal tender in the Dutch Caribbean public entities.

4. The reported response percentage on St. Maarten was over 90%, which is extremely high and virtually never reported in large-N survey research. The demographic make-up of St. Maarten, comprising a very large population of (undocumented) migrants, makes such a high response rate even more unlikely, and in 1998 the response rate was only 55% (Oostindie and Verton, 1998). An impartial check on the fieldwork that was commissioned in the spring of 2016 revealed that most of the alleged interviews had in fact never been held.

5. This pre-test was conducted in January 2015, and as part of the test approximately 40 interviews were held on five different islands.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek [Grant Number 858.14.012].