House of Cards and Political Science in Cuba

Armando Chaguaceda

HAVANA TIMES — A few weeks ago, I discovered – and literally devoured – the two seasons of the US TV series House of Cards, offered on Netflix. Anyone interested in political matters (and in the disciplines that tackle them) will find it impossible not to succumb to the charms of the series.

In addition to its high production value and excellent acting, one cannot fail to acknowledge its accurate portrayal of the subtleties, brutality, compromises and disputes that characterize the realpolitik of power circles in the United States (and, I should add, anywhere in the world).

Watching House of Cards, seeing the way in which alliances are forged and decisions that affect millions of people are made on the shores of the Potomac, one arrives at a better understanding of the essence of politics, while simultaneously asking oneself about the true limits and scope of US democracy.

It is a democracy that combines powerful mechanisms for monitoring and checking power with dark schemes that are wholly removed from the interests and knowledge of the population, where the ambitions and compromises of politicians, businesspeople, lobbyists and press magnates become intertwined in a complicated and dynamic political game. It is a system that both threatens the spirit of democracy and is incapable of annulling the rights of its citizens, exercised through the vote, mobilizations at street level and civil society.

The next thing I ask myself every time I finish watching an episode is how it is possible to portray the many low human passions the series explores before such a wide and diverse audience without making the political class panic or prompting it to think it will soon be overthrown by the angered spectators.

I realize that, for such a situation to exist, the society in question, in addition to enjoying a majority consensus about the desirability of a democratic order, must also have certain features. The existence of a vibrant press (which tackles scandals as much as serious, investigative journalism) and a solid academia, capable of addressing the country’s functioning and malaise as a topic of research, are some of these features.

When these are missing, we begin to witness the pathology typical of any organism incapable of processing its infections and creating antibodies – which is what we see, as a general rule, in Cuba’s political and public spheres.

Cuba’s political sciences output over the past few decades has been anything but vigorous.[i] Though some social sciences and disciplines in the humanities (which are also governed by the Party’s ideology apparatus) have taken steps towards a more sophisticated conception of reality and approach to gray areas, Cuban politology continues to be burdened by the very nature of its object of study.

The absence of an association of professionals in the field, the persistence of models that favor the descriptive and normative (if not the downright apologetic) to different extents over the analytical and propositional, are a number of obstacles to be overcome.

Despite commendable efforts[ii], the absence of substantial studies and the lack of public access to such key issues as the makeup of Cuba’s political elite and its real circulation and decision-making mechanisms maintain almost all production in the field at a superficial level, to the point that, today, the closest thing to a Cuban political sciences journal is Espacio Laical (“Secular Space”), a Catholic opinions and editorial journal.

Such a state of affairs does not stem exclusively from the nature of the island’s current political regime – it owes much to the strictly Brezhnevian legacy which subsists among government officials trained in academies of the former Soviet Union and in the conservative official perspective on the subordinate role of the intellectual.

Comparatively, the academia of allies such as Russia, Iran and China are light years ahead of Cuba in terms of dynamism, up-to-date practices and the diversity of their political perspectives. Provincialism (maintaining that Cuba is as unique as it is unexplainable), the reliance on essays as substitutes for scientific articles and the existing confusion between political philosophy (which is, in good measure, what the island produces the most) and absent disciplines such as political sociology, do not paint a very promising picture of the state of development of this area of human knowledge.

While doing my Masters’, one of my professors – a devout Stalinist – pronounced a phrase that perfectly summarizes the state of the discipline in Cuba: “Power does not like to be studied.” A short time later, a friend of mine at the time, reprimanded me for signing my first articles on Cuban politics with the epithet of “political scientist.” “You shouldn’t do that,” he said. “Here, the only people who can call themselves political scientists are – “and he mentioned a number of authorized voices of the island’s academia.

During those years – and up to the present day – government decisions, protests by the opposition, academic opinion and public perception all seem to go their separate ways, showing a degree of fragmentation and de-institutionalization which prevent the consolidation of a public sphere and a properly modern space for political action and thought.

I could end on a pessimistic note, saying that, as long as concrete political praxis – and not vague isms and cracies, divorced from reality – continues to be immune to media exposure and citizen intervention, the field of political analysis in Cuba will continue to suffer the sterilizing burden of ideological censorship and intellectual mediocrity.

A revitalization of the island’s political sciences, on the contrary, would help the active sectors of the population – supportive or critical of the government – to truly get to know the interstices of power and, as such, to evaluate the way in which their rights can be advanced or curtailed by power. It could also potentially make all levels of power more open to worldviews that are less complacent and out of touch with international and local realities.

Today, the civil and transnational Cuba that changes, becomes more and more interconnected and moves forward (despite all blockades and domination) is desacralizing discourse, opening up spaces for debate and, above all, giving rise to new agents capable of forging the future. With their help, perhaps we won’t have to wait too long before “our” Francis Underwoods are unmasked, their crimes exposed and citizens – including political scientists – find better reasons to continue working and living.