ABSTRACT 
The study attempts to examine the effects which 
the policies of the Commonwealth Caribbean "socialist" 
states had on the CARICOM integration scheme, between 
1973 and 1983. The emergence of "socialist" governments 
in Guyana, Jamaica and Grenada, deviated from tradition­
al political practices in the sub-region, and there is 
evidence that policy coordination was affected within 
the scheme. 
The "socialist" experiments were basically aimed at 
eliminating the structural biases of liberal democracy, 
to better provide for their peoples' social welfare. 
However, failure to resolve the tension in liberal 
democracy and operating within the constraints of an 
unfavourable world economy, meant that the CARICOM 
movement had little to gain from these "socialist" 
policies. 
The basic differences between the "socialist" and 
non-socialist policies were related to factors inherent 
in Caribbean politics, particularly that of indecisive-
ness, and so even without the "socialist" states, the 
non-decisions would have remained thereby leaving 
unsolved the problem of policy coordination. CARICOM 
states' foreign policy initiatives therefore could not 
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reflect the background of their countries' internal 
social structures and the configuration of power within 
them. Their overall policies had no firm roots in 
national material basics nor in deep and lasting 
institutional changes in the state systems and bureau­
cratic structures. 
The study concludes that while other factors 
impacted on the CARICOM mechanism, the presence of 
"socialist" governments in the scheme provided an 
important perspective from which some of CARICOM's 
problems can be viewed, in that time period. The 
attempt to "ideologize" the strategy of change made 
areas of conflict within the integration movement 
almost inevitable.