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election of the President. The procedural
core of this agenda is explained in an enlightening article by Professor Robert Cavalier (Carnegie Mellon University), who
demonstrates how the theory of voting and
the design of surveys are linked to deliberative democracy. Since the proponents of
deliberative democracy seek to create conditions for inclusive and well-structured discussions, the emphasis must be placed on
what goes on before making a decision. The
voting system must ensure that the contributions compete on an equal footing and that
the results are non-discriminatory. Professor
Cavalier exemplified by a selection method
that would have avoided the embarrassing
outcome of the 2000 presidential election in
the US. He explores the advantages and disadvantages of alternative voting methods to
conclude that although none is "fully satisfactory", the key is that voters are informed,
involved and a ble to see other interests. This
can be achieved with well-designed public
opinion polls and Professor Cavalier, as codirector of the Deliberative Democracy Program at Carnegie Mellon, exemplifies with
its surveys, successfully applied, for instance, in the public comment phase of the
selection process of a new police chief in the
city of Pittsburgh by 2014. The validity of
the methods of deliberative democracy (DD)
in the Cuban socio-political context is
shown by Fernando Palacio Mogar, leader
of the Liberal Cuban Solidarity Party, who
refers on how they were included in the approach to create the Table of Unity for
Democratic Action (MUAD, in its Spanish
acronym), which brings together more than
thirty organizations. These methods have
served to identify strengths, opportunities,

threats and weaknesses, as well as to seek
consensus and respect among the citizens of
different communities in a decision-making
process marked by deliberation as a form of
legitimation. Thus, the regional and communitarian problems are identified along
with the ways of solving them and acknowledging the relevant leadership through the
participatory methodology based in the DD
approach. It is the strategy that many human
rights activists and political actors have plotted to build the Cuba of the future, and Historian Leonardo Calvo Cardenas addresses
this complex issue from the perspective of
the transit "from identity to institutions."
According to the author, the Cuban nation is
at the crossroads of becoming a failed project or irreversibly showing that we are able
to structure a republic based on the rule of
law, the minority rights and the dignity of
individuals without distinction. The actual
condition is aggravated because the people
of African descent lost their voice and spaces of civic association and projection during
the so-called Revolution. Thus, it is imperative to reopen the civic, intellectual and political debate, as well as to carry out educational work within the communities to vindicate the heritage of African descent. It
includes learning their history, long denied
and concealed, and enhancing their civic
capacities, as it has been doing by the Citizens Committee for Racial Integration (CIR,
in its Spanish acronym). Naturally, the transition from identity to institutions requires a
convenient legality, and Historian Boris
González Arenas deals with the issue by
contrasting the institutionalization of Castroism that started in 1959 with the gradual
dismantling of the republican order. In such

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