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Public Culture 132 counterpart and that allows for a large degree of independent maneuvering. They recognize that departmentalization created a system of economic and political subordination and that decentralization, in turn, opened the way to local clien- telism, party factionalism, and identitarianism. Yet their work also indicates that Martinique has come to enjoy a substantial degree of political autonomy and cul- tural integrity without sacrificing full citizenship and social protections within a democratic French republic. The system recognizes Martinican geographic and cultural specificity while allowing for movement and mixture. It also legally pro- tects the deep ties that link Antilleans to metropolitan society, the republican pol- ity, and European history.77 This unofficial movement toward legal pluralism and administrative diversity within a decentralized and multicultural French republic has been further complicated by the peculiar status of the Antillean departments in the EU as well as by their growing commitment to membership in a broader Caribbean region from which it had usually stood apart.78 77. Daniel, “L’espace politique martiniquais.” Other accounts of the specificity of the Martinican political system include Constant, La retraite aux flambeaux; Fred Reno, “La créolisation de l’espace publique à la Martinique” (“The Creolization of Public Space in Martinique”), in Constant and Daniel, 1946 – 1996, 405 – 32; and Reno, “Politics and Society in Martinique,” in Burton and Reno, French and West Indian, 34 – 47. 78. Daniel argues that the “autonomization of political space” has also led to its “enlargement,” creating a situation in which Martinique has developed multiple allegiances, identifying simulta- neously with the Antilles, the wider Caribbean, France, and the EU (“L’espace politique martini- quais,” 252). On the EU, see Emmanuel Jos, “The Declaration of the Treaty of Maastricht on the Ultra-peripheral Regions of the Community: An Assessment,” in Burton and Reno, French and West Indian, 86 – 97; and Daniel, “L’espace politique martiniquais,” 242 – 55. Departmentalization thus expanded the boundaries of “Europe” and created opportunities for Antilleans, as Europeans, to pursue their interests directly through the EU without the intermediation of the French state. Yet, because they are formal departments of France, the Antillean DOMs are excluded from many of the economic subsidies, development funding, and security pacts designed to aid “ultraperipheral” regions of the Union. And its already diminished agricultural economy is further threatened by a common market without protections from low-priced competitors. Historically, Martinique has been only weakly integrated into a Caribbean region, where it has enjoyed better living conditions, social protections, and political stability than its independent counterparts. On comparisons and connec- tions between the French Antillean DOMs and other Caribbean states, see Paul Sutton, ed., Dual Legacies in the Contemporary Caribbean: Continuing Aspects of British and French Dominion (London: Cass, 1986); Maurice Burac, “The French Antilles, and the Wider Caribbean,” in Burton and Reno, French and West Indian, 98 – 111; Fred Constant and Justin Daniel, eds., Politique et développement dans les Caraîbes (Policy and Development in the Caribbean) (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999), esp. Justin Daniel, “Crise ou mutations des institutions: La quête de nouveaux modèles” (“Cri- sis or Institutional Transformation: The Search for New Models”), 99 – 153; and Daniel, “Dével- oppement et compétition politique: Vers une mutation du modèle portoricain?” (“Development and Political Competition: Toward a Transformation of the Puerto Rican Model?”), in Les îles caraïbes: Modèles politiques et stratégíes de développement (The Caribbean Islands: Political Models and Strategies of Development) (Paris: Karthala, 1996), 185 – 223.