Facilitator or hindrance to social change? The Westminster model and racial discrimination on the Jamaican labour market, 1944–1980

Abstract

Between 1944 and 1962, Jamaica witnessed a process of Westminsterisation. The Westminster model has the potential to bring about socio-economic change as its executive can move its policy agenda quickly through the legislature because it is created from a majority in the legislature's lower house. Yet it can also stifle change because of its lack of separation between the executive and legislative branches of government and other attributes. This article illustrates this duality of the Westminster model in the Caribbean through a case study of the attitudes of the Jamaican government towards racial discrimination on the labour market between 1944 and 1980.