The obligation of individuals and institutions to explain decisions, accept scrutiny, and face consequences. Accountability requires mechanisms such as rules, oversight, and enforcement. Transparency without consequence is disclosure, not accountability.

The power to influence what the public thinks about by determining what is prioritised, repeated, or treated as urgent. Agenda-setting operates as much through omission as through emphasis.

A structural reliance on external financial or technical assistance that constrains domestic policy autonomy. In Caribbean states, aid dependency often shapes development priorities, reporting obligations, and political leverage.

The tendency of digital platforms to boost content that generates engagement, regardless of accuracy or harm. This dynamic often rewards outrage and simplicity while marginalising nuance.

Evidence drawn from personal stories or isolated cases. Anecdotes can illuminate lived experience but become misleading when treated as representative without supporting data.

Cultural distrust of expertise, research, or complex explanation, often framed as elitism. Anti-intellectualism narrows debate by rewarding certainty and punishing nuance.

An argument that something should remain unchanged because it has always been done that way. This framing often masks power, vested interest, or fear of disruption.

A curated record of documents, stories, images, or testimony that shapes what is remembered. Archives reflect power through selection, preservation, and omission.

The socially recognised right to exercise power. Authority is sustained through legitimacy, law, tradition, or expertise, and erodes when trust collapses.

A reactive effort to reverse or punish social, political, or cultural change, often framed as restoring common sense or order.

A systematic inclination shaping interpretation or judgment. Bias can be explicit or unconscious and is often embedded structurally rather than individually.

The sustained emigration of skilled professionals seeking better wages, security, or opportunity abroad. Brain drain affects healthcare, education, and institutional capacity across the Caribbean.

Administrative systems designed to implement policy. Bureaucracy can enable fairness and order or produce delay, opacity, and gatekeeping depending on incentives.

A framework that treats punishment and containment as primary responses to social problems, shaping policy beyond prisons into schools, welfare, and policing.

The Caribbean Community, a regional organisation aimed at economic integration, coordination of foreign policy, and functional cooperation. CARICOM’s influence is shaped by uneven state capacity and national interests.

The use of direct payments or material assistance as a political tool, often framed as social support but operating within clientelist dynamics.

The restriction or suppression of speech or information by authority, platforms, or economic pressure. Censorship can be overt or subtle.

The ability to understand how institutions function, how decisions are made, and what rights and obligations exist. Civic literacy underpins democratic participation.

The space between state and market where organisations, advocacy groups, unions, and community networks operate. Civil society can democratise power or entrench elites.

A social position shaped by income, education, occupation, and cultural legitimacy. Class influences mobility, credibility, and whose experience is treated as normative.

A political exchange system where goods, jobs, or favours are traded for loyalty or votes, weakening institutions by converting rights into favours.

The heightened exposure of Caribbean states to climate shocks such as hurricanes, sea-level rise, and drought, compounded by limited fiscal buffers.

The persistence of colonial patterns of power, culture, and knowledge long after formal rule ends. Coloniality explains why independence does not equal equality.

The enduring legal, political, and institutional structures inherited from British colonial rule, including parliamentary systems and common law.

Processes by which public agreement is shaped through repetition, framing, selective information, and pressure, often appearing as organic opinion.

A system where the head of state is a monarch represented locally, coexisting with elected government. In the Caribbean, this structure reflects colonial continuity rather than local choice.

The historical, social, economic, and cultural conditions that give facts meaning. Context is structural, not decorative.

A sustained rise in basic expenses such as food, housing, and utilities that outpaces wages. In small island economies, import dependence amplifies these shocks.

A story that challenges dominant framing by centring excluded facts, voices, or interpretations. Counter-narratives can correct distortion or compete for power.

Languages formed through colonial contact, blending African, European, and Indigenous influences. Creole languages carry cultural knowledge but are often marginalised institutionally.

The adoption of elements of a marginalised culture by a dominant group without context, credit, or respect, often for profit.

Non-financial assets such as education, language, credentials, and taste that confer social advantage and often masquerade as merit.

The proportion of national revenue devoted to repaying external debt, limiting social investment. Caribbean states often face high debt-to-GDP ratios.

A system of collective decision-making involving participation, rights, accountability, and institutional checks. Elections alone do not ensure democratic depth.

Political influence exercised across borders through remittances, advocacy, and narrative.

Funds sent home by migrants that support households and national economies, while masking structural underemployment.

The structured ways ideas are discussed and circulated. Discourse determines what can be said, how, and by whom.

Deliberately false or misleading information shared to manipulate perception or behaviour.

Inconsistent application of rules depending on status, power, or affiliation. Double standards signal unequal power relations.

The ability of a state to withstand external economic disruptions. Small island economies have limited buffers and high exposure.

The exchange of votes for short-term material benefits, often justified as assistance. This practice weakens institutional accountability.

When policies or institutions intended for public benefit are controlled by a narrow group with disproportionate influence.

When individuals or groups are wronged specifically in their capacity as knowers, through dismissal, exclusion, or lack of interpretive tools.

Fairness rooted in context rather than sameness. Equity accounts for unequal starting points to achieve comparable outcomes.

Dependence on a narrow range of exports such as tourism, agriculture, or commodities, increasing vulnerability to shocks.

An economic model prioritising removal of value without building sustainable local capacity. Extraction can be material or structural.

Treating unequal positions as equally valid, often in the name of balance, obscuring power and evidence.

Shorthand for automation, AI, and digitisation reshaping labour and governance, with uneven impacts.

How an issue is presented and interpreted, shaping perception before opinion forms.

Contestation around regional labour mobility, particularly within CARICOM, balancing integration with domestic political pressure.

The right to communicate ideas without undue restriction, shaped in practice by power, access, and consequence.

Highly polarised communities aligned with political parties, often reinforced by patronage, fear, and historical violence.

Control over access to platforms, resources, opportunities, or legitimacy.

Social expectations governing behaviour and roles based on perceived gender.

Systems through which decisions are made, implemented, and enforced, including formal and informal actors.

The 1979–1983 socialist-oriented government and subsequent US invasion, shaping regional political memory and Cold War alignment.

Dominance maintained through consent rather than force, shaping what feels normal or inevitable.

Shared interpretations through which societies remember themselves, shaped by archives, education, media, and silence.

The cycle of disaster, reconstruction, and aid following storms, often benefiting contractors more than communities.

Socially constructed categories through which people understand themselves and are understood by others.

A structured set of beliefs about how the world works and should work, often operating invisibly.

Reliance on imported food, fuel, and goods, exposing Caribbean economies to global price volatility.

Economic activity outside formal regulation and taxation, often both survival system and policy blind spot.

Housing areas developed outside formal planning systems, often lacking secure tenure but serving as critical housing solutions.

Durable social structures that set rules, norms, and roles, outlasting individuals.

Power exercised through established rules and procedures rather than individuals.

Movement of workers within and beyond the Caribbean in search of employment, shaping demographics and family structures.

Unclear or informal land ownership that limits access to credit, infrastructure, and legal protection.

Perception that authority or action is justified and acceptable.

Knowledge derived from direct personal or communal engagement with systems.

Ability to critically evaluate media, detect manipulation, and recognise framing and incentives.

False or misleading information shared without intent to deceive.

A wave of exaggerated fear framed as a threat to social order, often leading to punitive policy.

Ability to define which stories dominate and whose voices are amplified.

Long-term strategic documents outlining economic and social goals, often constrained by political cycles and fiscal limits.

A claimed absence of position that can still reinforce the status quo.

Unwritten rules governing behaviour and belonging.

Financial services designed for non-residents, offering tax efficiency but raising transparency and regulatory concerns.

Constructing groups as fundamentally different to justify exclusion or control.

Range of ideas considered acceptable in public debate at a given time.

Distribution of jobs or benefits in exchange for loyalty.

Historical economic structures based on extraction and coerced labour that continue to shape land use, class, and inequality.

Formal decisions or rules shaping behaviour and resource allocation.

Political style framing society as ‘the people’ versus ‘the elite,’ often simplifying complexity.

The social and economic order following slavery, marked by limited land access and constrained mobility for freed populations.

Condition marked by persistence of colonial systems after independence.

Strategic communication designed to shape perception and behaviour through repetition and emotion.

Claimed pursuit of collective well-being, always worth interrogating.

A labour market condition where government employment dominates due to limited private-sector opportunity.

Influence exercised through defaults, norms, and institutional design.

Process of assigning racial meaning that shapes access and credibility.

Efforts to coordinate policy, trade, and diplomacy among Caribbean states to amplify collective voice.

Speaking or acting on behalf of others; presence does not equal power.

Strategies seeking safety or acceptance through conformity to dominant norms.

Blaming a targeted group for complex problems to consolidate power.

Inconsistent application of rules based on power or status.

Social condition produced by fear, fatigue, or exclusion.

Foreign policy strategies used by small states to leverage moral authority, coalitions, and multilateral institutions.

Implicit agreement about rights, responsibilities, and legitimacy between people and institutions.

Hierarchies based on skin tone rooted in colonial racial systems, persisting beyond formal racism.

Influence achieved through attraction, credibility, and culture.

Explaining outcomes through systems and incentives rather than individuals alone.

Superficial inclusion without transfer of power or change in outcomes.

Economic reliance on tourism revenue, exposing states to global travel disruptions and seasonal volatility.

Availability of information about decisions and processes.

Belief that institutions will act fairly and competently.

Persistent asymmetries in access and influence rooted in history and design.

A regional university system serving multiple Caribbean territories, central to knowledge production and political leadership.

Disparities in infrastructure, services, and opportunity between urban centres and rural communities.

Beliefs about what matters and what is acceptable.

Ability to be heard and taken seriously in decision-making spaces.

Diagnostic question revealing beneficiaries and incentives.

Complex issue with no single solution and unavoidable trade-offs.

Hostility toward outsiders, often mobilised during stress.

Structural exclusion of young people from meaningful power.

High rates of joblessness among young people, often disconnected from education systems and economic growth sectors.

Belief that gains for one group require losses for another.