This paper describes the current model of governance in Haiti as focused on personalities or men of power rather than institutions. The discussion outlines the strategy by the personalities and the main traits of the model of governance aforesaid. The main traits are the disruption of public institutions, widespread corruption, human rights violation, shocks, and violence against citizens, etc. This model of governance is counterproductive for inclusive development and human rights fulfillment.

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The republic of Haiti is well-known as a tremendous symbol of the modern revolution against colonialism and slavery. Haiti has influenced modern history in the deconstructing and reconstructing the relationship between colonializing countries and colonized countries. Haiti’s revolution has not only inspired other freedom revolutions but also more than that, by instance, countries like Greece and Venezuela requested and received direct economic and military aid from Haiti to fight imperialist powers¹. Unfortunately, the living conditions of Haitians have not reflected the greatness of their history.

Particularly, after the end of the Duvalier’s regime in February 1986, the social and economic conditions have evolved into severe decapitalization[ CITATION ETI07 \l 1033 ]. In the last 25 years, Haiti’s case becomes so complicated – and the people so in despair – that the country shows to the world one of the most traumatizing models of governance. In this communication, we aim to highlight the key criteria and effects of such a model of governance. The data for our analysis are drawn primarily from methods of observation and surveys of repetitive social cases which have enabled us to establish patterns.

By the concept of governance, we would refer both to strategic actors (from state institutions, civil society organizations, and private sector), and to their process of governing and decision-making related to collective social problems, wealth creation, and management, etc. This would be the formal and inclusive mechanism of deciding on collective issues in society.

To work on governance in Haiti, among other parameters, we identified and tried to understand a series of parameters such as the social group (s) that make the decisions, the social group (s) that benefit the most from the decisions, the social group (s) that control the resources, the social group (s) that exercise the political power, the violence monopoly, etc. This approach is dual in that it helps to analyze at the same time the lack and the sufficiency among the social actors.

The informalization of the state institutions

In Haiti, if the state actors are identifiable as elected authorities, appointed authorities, and civil servants, naming the civil society representatives and the private sector representatives are quite debatable. Both the civil society and the private sector include formally organized groups, informal groups, and personalities. The formal groups broadly lack legitimacy with weak abilities to influence the governing process. The informal groups have no legitimacy at all, but their power in the decision-making process is prevalent. Based on such informal groups, the personalities manage to exercise substantial political power.

We understand personalities as famous people forming hereby 3 categories:

- Officials or former officials linked with informal groups (Ministers, general directors, presidents of the republic, etc.).

- Non-officials linked with informal groups (Businesspeople, political leaders, journalists, entertainers, etc.)

- Non-officials, leaders of informal groups supporting the government, the political opposition, the business community, etc.

The informal groups can take various forms such as popular pressure groups, popular entertainment groups, armed groups, mafia, criminal groups, etc. They take their power from their capacities to exert popular violence, to intimidate opponents, to shock the population by organizing targeted crimes in public. So, personalities linked to or controlling informal groups are real men of power. The characteristic of these men of power is to break the institutional rules and upset social norms in the pursuit of greed.

Despite some weaknesses, the institutions and rule of law do exist in Haiti, but the powerful actors from state institutions, civil society organizations, and the private sector still govern and make decisions through the illegal process. Thus, there are two ways of solving collective problems in the country: the formal mechanism when the actors deliberately resist in solving some public issues, and the informal mechanism when they are speeding in solving issues in their interest. In terms of practice, the informal mechanism dominates the governing and decision-making process in the country.

The failure of the state and criminalization of the economy

Personalities from the business sector, the civil society and with the complicity of corrupted officials (mostly from the parliament) have successfully kept the state failed in its core functions. The state institutions are usually mutilated in the profit of the personalities. Each ministry or important public institution would be privatized by one or two men of power pursuing different goals. It becomes impossible for public institutions to coordinate benefits for average citizens. The men of power manage public institutions like their own for-profit business. That becomes so common that average civil servants would lose the spirit of public service and become themselves motivated by greed.

The public institutions become screens to protect the interests of the personalities. They confiscate the state apparatus to either reverse its core functions (when there are obstacles to their immediate interests) or exert their influence in matters of legislation, judiciary, tax regulations, police force to keep their social position[ CITATION LOC09 \l 1033 ].

The personalities run a system where there is no competition, part from occasional moments of anger against each other, without there ever being serious escalation which could weaken their social position. Small clashes only further lock down their system to keep intruders on the outside. Consequently, the defenders of public interests find no place on the negotiating table.

After they alienate the core functions of the state apparatus, there is no longer a mechanism allowing the state to achieve goals in the general interest. The personalities are free to shape the market under no rule of law. Every profiting sector is harshly controlled by one or two of them. Corruption and organized crimes are the favorite means to operate the business. For example, they offer very low-quality products (oftentimes expired food) for the highest price. They keep stealing customs duties. They keep intimidating any citizen of goodwill who wants to invest in their sectors of preference.

Each region of the country is under the threat of armed groups. These groups show political motivation, but their utmost motivation is economic (even purely financial). They form the armed wing of the mafia business class and politicians stingy for easy money. These groups form the hardcore of a black and criminalized economy.

The instrumentalization of mass poverty and social violence

Everyone is struggling with poverty in the country, except the minority consisting of personalities or those are around them. This would be defined as mass poverty according to the theory by John Kenneth Galbraith [ CITATION GAL80 \l 1033 ]. The poverty in the country cannot be explained any more by lack of natural resources, nor by the liberal politics imposed by the international community. The Dominican Republic, as the nearest neighboring country, has made significant advancements in combating extreme poverty. In 2019, Haiti had a GDP of US$784 (the lowest GDP in the region), and the Dominican Republic reached US$8,630². The international community has the same policy for both countries, the free trade and liberal economy. Haiti cannot comply with basic human rights while receiving significant external aid.

The country is not lacking capital. The amount of public funds regularly misappropriated is proof of this. Dirty money circulates in all sectors of the economy. Banks do not operate loans accessible to the population. The needs of immediate consumption are by no means met, and yet there is no saving for investment. This seems a tricky case for classic economics.

The personalities live in the country, sucking the country's resources, but their assets are elsewhere. They are in the country but do not belong to it. So, they never face the priority to act so the living conditions in the country improve. Their action can only result in growing poverty for everybody, except themselves.

Politicians would normally redouble their efforts to reduce or even eradicate poverty, but in Haiti, poverty becomes their favorite instrument for building and keeping power. They are waging war on civilians for control of ghettos and gangs. Barefoot children can own expensive weapons of war while starving to death. The personalities can spend millions to arm and supply ammunition to the young people in the ghettos, but there are no tables, benches, and chalk in the existing schools. There is no drinking water nor electricity in neighborhoods. People live on rubbish where rats and stink are constant. Paradoxically, these districts which should be hideous and revolting scenes form the power base of the triumphant personalities in the country.

The systematization of human rights violations

Why do citizens accept to live in such conditions? Citizens make protests, they do say no. But the personalities oftentimes manage to infiltrate citizens protests to discredit them. Still, contrary to the ideas of Galbraith [ CITATION GAL80 \l 1033 ], Haitians do not resign themselves to an impossibility of improving their living conditions. The personalities are so far successful in setting up a system to control. This system of control is characterized by deprivation, shock, fear, and violence.

Officials are normally agents responsible for carrying out acts for the benefit of citizens who are constituents[ CITATION Dav141 \l 1033 ]. In Haiti, the relationship between agents and constituents does not exist in practice. Citizens are not treated as rights holders. Those in charge act as though they were doing favors for the people. They do not act according to the rights guaranteed by the national constitution and universal human rights. The agents' and constituents’ relationships become simply paternalistic. The officials are like fathers rewarding sons according to the obedience of the latter. The officials grant themselves rights and privileges against the citizens.

The population is deprived of all basic services. The right to education, health, basic nutrition, the right to leisure, and so on are an illusion. Everywhere in the working-class and poor districts the explosion of automatic weapons occurs. The country is at war against its citizens. Ordinary citizens are the main targets and the largest victims of this war. This is partly consistent with Mary Kaldor's new war theories. According to her, in new wars, violence is deliberately inflicted on non-combatants [ CITATION Mar07 \l 1033 ], as Haitian citizens are the largest group of victims of political and criminal violence. They are constantly subject to kidnapping and seizure for ransom, often followed by assassinations. The disarray of the population is periodically fueled by criminal and political tactics. Small businesses are periodically looted and set on fire. Criminals indulging in heinous crimes instill fear. The State apparatus keeps protecting personalities against citizens 'demands for transparency and accountability.

The degraded environment of the country makes it very vulnerable to natural disasters and epidemics. Curable diseases keep devastating the health of the population. In each natural catastrophe, the population counts the dead and the personalities are enriched with more international aid. The citizens are left to account by those personalities who are systematically lynching the population. The citizens become so abused and exhausted that their resilience takes barely visible forms.

The disruption of the governance system by powerful and self-serving personalities

As for a conclusion, the governance model focused on personalities cannot inclusively reflect the social subsystems. The categories of actors – even if they were to structure their claims, refine their proposals, and counter-proposals – do not have many possibilities of arguing their causes at the negotiation table. Consequently, the categories of actors cannot normally play their role in the governance and development process of the country [ CITATION FIL13 \l 1033 ]. They would constantly fail in their function to structure and organize the contradictory social demands around the general interests of the nation.

Such a context is the breeding ground for social injustice, widespread corruption, the waste of resources, and certainly the impoverishment and abuse of citizens. This model of governance is part of the hardest bottlenecks to the fulfillment of human rights and sustainable development in Haiti.

08/22/2020

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