Read more about the article Decentralization and Development in the World’s First Black Republic

Decentralization and Development in the World’s First Black Republic

In Haiti, decentralization as a development tool has been a part of the political discourse for over thirty years, since the end of the 29-year father-son Duvalier dictatorship in 1986. However, Haiti’s recent progress – specifically in terms of fiscal decentralization – has been largely credited to the United States Agency for International Development’s Limyè ak Òganizasyon pou Kolektivite yo Ale Lwen (LOKAL+) program though it has not been readily apparent to what extent enhancements in local revenue have impacted public expenditures.

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Read more about the article The History of Peasants, Tonton Makouts, and the Rise and Fall of the Duvalier Dictatorship in Haiti

The History of Peasants, Tonton Makouts, and the Rise and Fall of the Duvalier Dictatorship in Haiti

This dissertation analyzes the social and political history of Haitian peasants and the formation of the brutally repressive Duvalier dictatorship. It establishes that the rise of the dictatorship was the result of a political trajectory shaped by historical processes. In post- emancipated Haiti during the nineteenth century, thousands of peasants, who were formerly enslaved, joined the military and participated in insurrections to achieve high status and social mobility.

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Read more about the article “Let Us Forge One Path Together”: Gender, Class, and Political Subjectivities in a Haitian Popular Neighborhood

“Let Us Forge One Path Together”: Gender, Class, and Political Subjectivities in a Haitian Popular Neighborhood

Over sixty years after the introduction of women’s suffrage and nearly forty years after the uneven institutionalization of representative democracy, the majority of Haitian women face mounting challenges to maintaining their livelihoods and playing more prominent roles in politics. This dissertation advances an understanding of poor urban women’s collective potential and the challenges to their self-making as agents of change.

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Read more about the article Privilege in Haiti: Travails in Color of the First Bourgeois Nation-State in the Americas

Privilege in Haiti: Travails in Color of the First Bourgeois Nation-State in the Americas

Who are the elites in the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere? Do Haiti’s elites constitute themselves in a Blackness vs. Whiteness/Mulattoness opposition? In investigating these questions, this ethnography encompasses in the object of study the nation’s middle classes educated in Western ways, and it arrives at an analysis of social relations among privileged national subjects within and across boundaries of color.

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Read more about the article “So Many Schemes in Agitation”: The Haitian State and the Atlantic World

“So Many Schemes in Agitation”: The Haitian State and the Atlantic World

This dissertation examines Haiti'ʹs crucial role in the re-making of the Atlantic World in the early 19th century. The point of departure for this work is Haiti’s Declaration of Independence in 1804 and my research explores how events in Haiti raised profound questions about revolutionary legitimacy and national sovereignty.

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Read more about the article A Tree Grows in Haiti: A Suitability and Political Ecological Analysis of Potential Bamboo Reforestation in Haiti

A Tree Grows in Haiti: A Suitability and Political Ecological Analysis of Potential Bamboo Reforestation in Haiti

n Haiti's largely agrarian society as well as in many other islands in the Caribbean, deforestation has become an issue that has long term, negative consequences for the livelihood of farmers and the ability of the nation as a whole to rebound after natural disasters, a frequent occurrence in Haiti.

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