History as an Obstacle to Change: The Case of Haiti

Author(s): Mats Lundahl

Source: Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 1/2, Special Issue:
Latin America at the Crossroads: Major Public Policy Issues (Spring - Summer, 1989), pp. 1-21
Published by: Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami
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 HISTORY AS AN OBSTACLE TO
CHANGE: THE CASE OF HAITI
by MATS LUNDAHL*

...widespread social evils are seldom unconnected with the

selfish and brutal behavior of powerful groups and in-
dividuals...(Andreski, 1966).

MOST ECONOMIC MODELS do not explicitly incorporate the

"state" or the "government" into their analyses. Instead, this entity
is viewed as a deus ex machina which plans and directs economic
policy according to notions of efficiency, growth, distributional
justice, and so on, that form the central concepts of the models.
Unfortunately, the same naive thinking permeates a good deal of
public policy analysis. This is the case, for example, with issues of
development and underdevelopment. Here, attention is con-
centrated on "technical," or "economic," solutions, while taking
for granted, either implicitly or explicitly, the existence of the
political will necessary to implement them.
From a historical perspective, this view appears unduly
simplistic. Efficiency has been the exception rather than the rule

Mats Lundahl is Professor of Development Economics at the Stock-

holm School of Economics. He is the author of PEASANTSAND POVER-
TY: A STUDY OF HAITI(Croom Helm and St. Martin'sPress, 1979) and
THE HAITIANECONOMY:MAN,LANDAND MARKETS(Croom Helm
Publishers and St. Martin's Press, 1983). He is currently preparing a
volume on government and underdevelopment in Haiti, to be published
by Routledge.
*The author gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of a
grant from SAREC,which made this study possible, as well as his debt
to Yves Bourdet for comments on an early draft.

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2 JOURNALOF INTERAMERICAN
STUDIESAND WORLDAFFAIRS

(North, 1981: 6), for the reason that most governments have not
acted in the naive way economists assume. The present article will
focus on the lack of political will to foster change and develop-
ment in the most underdeveloped nation in the Western Hemi-
sphere: Haiti.
By and large, the economic underdevelopment of Haiti is the
result of three factors: (1) the interaction between the growth of
the population and soil erosion, (2) the lack of technological
progress in agriculture (which is where the vast majority of the
population earn their living), and (3) the predatory nature of the
governments which have ruled the country for more than one and
a half centuries (Lundahl, 1979, 1983, 1984b and 1985a). From the
point of view of the present work, the firstof these factors may be
considered as a spontaneous process which, in principle, operates
regardless of how the country is governed. As the population
grows, there is a tendency for the agriculturalsector to produce
crops which are increasingly labor-intensive - crops which, un-
fortunately, are not perennial and which, therefore, contribute to
the severe erosion of the steep mountainsides. As a result, per
capita income from agriculture declines over time. The second,
technological stagnation, can be explained largely as the result of
a set of spontaneous factors: relative factor prices, indivisibilities,
high effective interest rates, risk, and so forth (Lundahl, 1979: Ch.
12).
In the absence of positive action by government, therefore, it
comes as no surprise that the spontaneous factors have carried the
day although the role of government has by no means been pas-
sive. Over and above the lack of positive action, there is also a
predatory political component. The ruling politicians have acted
on the assumption that the nation exists for the sake of the polity,
not vice versa. This assumption is what has guided political action
in the economic sphere, and it is this assumption that will be sub-
ject to analysis below.

THE FALL OF THE DUVALIER DYNASTY

AFTER NEARLY29 YEARSOF uninterrupted rule, the Duvalier

dynastyin Haitifell on 7 February1986, and the President a Vie,
Jean-Claude (Baby Doc), who had inherited the presidency from
his father Francois(Papa Doc) in 1971, went into an idle and gilded

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 LUNDAHL:HISTORYAS AN OBSTACLETO CHANGE 3

exile in Mougins, on the French Cote d'Azur, possibly with as

much as US$ 1,600-million at his disposal (Gilles, 1986; Hautin-
Guiraut, 1986; Alaux, 1987; Haiti Ministere de l'Economie, n.d.).
During the preceding years, tensions had mounted to the point
that the president had completely lost that strong grip on the
country which his fatherhad established in less than 15 years (Lun-
dahl, 1984a).
Papa Doc had crushed the traditional power structure of the
country (the army, the mulatto elite, the church and the business
community) and constructed - with the general backing of the
urban and ruralblack middle class - a new power structurebased
on his tonton macoute militia, the houngans (voodoo priests),
and the rural politico-administrative bosses or chefs de section
(Lundahl, 1984a, Nicholls, 1985). By the mid-1960s, the new politi-
cal organization was consolidated, and the president was able to
forge his own modus vivendi with traditionalpower groups.
After having his son, Jean-Claude, elected successor for life,
Papa Doc died in 1971. The dynastic succession was smooth since
Jean-Claude simply inherited the power base created by his father.
While this was an advantage in the short run, it subsequently
proved to be a liability in the long run, as the father's power base
had been a personal one, centered exclusively on himself and his
experience. This posed a problem for Baby Doc, who "hadlived
most of his life in the presidential palace and lacked his father's
intimate knowledge of the country" (Nicholls, 1986: 1241), and
who thus lacked the personal loyalties, as well as political skills,
needed to manipulate his father'ssupporters.1As a consequence,
Jean-Claude began to act more and more on his own initiative,
gradually replacing the old duvalierists with men of his own
choice, "mostly from sections of the elite whom he had met in
school..." (Nicholls, 1984; and 1985:225).
In so doing, the president shifted his base of support towards
the business community and towards a young generation of tech-
nocrats, who were given senior political positions in the ministries
- and who were much more palatable to foreign aid donors than
had been the old terror guard. This shift became further con-
solidated when Jean-Claude married Michele Bennett, daughter
of a rich mulatto businessman, in 1980. The political marriagewas
consummated by a human one.

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4 JOURNALOF INTERAMERICAN
STUDIESAND WORLDAFFAIRS

However, the marriageturned out to be of more than symbolic

importance for the president:
While it would be wrong to attributeall the problems of Baby
Doc to his marriage, and to blame Michele Bennett for his
political demise, the president's growing dependence upon
a corrupt clique headed by Ernest Bennett was viewed with
alarmby different sectors of the population. Well-established
and influential members of the business community disliked
the privileges accorded to this arriviste- as they saw him.
The old guard of black Duvalierists saw the situation in terms
of a revival in mulatto influence. Undisguised profiteering by
the Duvalier-Bennett entourage, with hundreds of millions
of dollars leaving the country into private bank accounts and
an extravagant life-style at home, disgusted all sectors of the
population. The bourgeoisie, upon whom the regime had
come increasingly to depend, began to look around for al-
ternatives (Nicholls, 1986: 1241-42).
In 1984, spontaneous food riots took place in various cities; at
the beginning of 1985, the Catholic Church organized solidarity
protest marches, and, in November of the same year, three high
school students were killed in Gonaives during anti-government
demonstrations. InJanuary 1986, disorder spread throughout the
country, schools were boycotted, stores were closed, and
transportbetween the capital and the larger provincial cities was
interrupted. Towards the end of the month, a general strike was
called. Schools remained closed, and businesses and factories shut
down. Demonstrators were killed in the streets by the armed for-
ces. The Reagan administrationdecided that the Duvalier govern-
ment violated the human rights conditions set up by the United
States Congress for economic aid to Haiti and withdrew its sup-
port. The president had to leave the country (De Wind and Kin-
ley, 1988: 150-51). There was little interest among the old
duvalierists to protect Baby Doc. Even the tonton macoutes
remained relatively passive.

FROM NAMPHY TO NAMPHY2

FOLLOWING THE DECHOUCAJ(uprooting) of duvalierism, a

Conseil National de Gouvernerent (CNG) was formed under the
leadership of General Henri Namphy, Commander-in-Chiefof the
Armed Forces. Political prisoners were freed, the tonton macoutes

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 LUNDAHL:HISTORYAS AN OBSTACLETO CHANGE 5

and the legislature (elected under Duvalier in 1984) were dis-

solved. Plans were announced for a new constitution and for
presidential elections based on direct and universal suffrage. In
June 1986, it was announced that elections for both the legislature
and the presidency would be held in November 1987. Political
parties were legalized, and, for the firsttime in many decades, the
communists were not excluded. In August, Haiti signed three
agreements for financial assistance with the United States.
Confidence was high, both inside and outside the country, in
the good intentions of the military,who dominated the CNG.Haiti
appeared on its way towards democracy. A host of politicians
returned from exile to form political parties, along with those
within the country who had been biding their time during the
Duvalier years.
However, beneath the surface, discontent with the CNG was
brewing and soon broke out into the open. In November 1986,
more than 50 political parties, desirous of ridding Haitiof the CNG,
sponsored a general strike, leaving in its wake a total of three dead.
Left-wing parties called for the resignation of two members of the
government: that of Minister of Economy and Finance Leslie
Delatour, for his implementation of economic liberalization
measures associated with the conservative Chicago school of
economics3, as well as that of Ministerof the Interiorand Defense
Colonel Williams Regala, alleged strong man of the CNG, for his
part in permitting army violence and for serving as US errandboy.
Tradeunions called for higher wages, and school youth boycotted
the start of the school. All in all, the political temperature was
rising.
The October elections for the Constituent Assembly (which
was to draftthe new constitution) turned out to be a complete fias-
co, with a mere 2-5%of the voters participating. Nevertheless, at
the end of March 1987 a referendum was held at which the new
constitution was approved, with 42%of the population of voting
age casting almost all of the votes. The constitution guaranteed
certain freedoms - of the individual and of expression - and
provided for the election of a president, who could serve for a 5-
year period, although not for more than two, non-consecutive,
periods. Parliamentary representation was ensured via a
bicameral legislature, and political parties were allowed (Haiti,
1987). A Conseil Electoral Provisoire (CEP) was created to or-

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6 JOURNALOF INTERAMERICAN
STUDIESAND WORLDAFFAIRS

ganize and validate the elections. In spite of the unrest, it appeared

as if the democratic process would have its due.
The CNG, however, chose to hold back the democratization
process. The issuance of two unpopular decrees - one limiting
the authority of the CEPto that of a mere voter registration office,
the other prohibiting one of the two federations of trade unions,
the Centrale Autonome des Travailleurs Ha'tiens (CATH), on ac-
count of having called "political"strikes - led to another general
strike, marked by street fighting and army intervention, in June.
Both decrees were then recalled, but it was clear that a breach had
widened between the CNG on the one hand, and the CEP, the
political parties, and the trade unions on the other.
A few days prior to revocation of the CNG decrees, Willy
Romelus, popular bishop of Jeremie and a well-known anti-
duvalierist, launched the slogan "Rachbmanyok, bay te-a blanch"
(uproot the manioc and leave a virgin soil), i.e. "Get rid of the
CNG."His slogan was quickly picked up by various organizations
in a series of strikes and demonstrations during the month ofJuly.
Two political murders and a massacre of peasants in Jean-Rabel,
in the northwestern part of the country, further heightened the
political tension. Popular feeling grew that the CNG was doing
nothing to deal with, much less eliminate, the former duvalierist
structures. General Namphy responded by invoking the specter
of chaos and civil war, charging that "destabilization"was being
caused by "extremistagitators"and abetted by a lack of political
maturityon the part of the general population.
Elections for the presidency and the legislature, scheduled for
29 November, came to naught. The weeks preceding the elections
were characterized by street violence and killing, gunfire at night
(and sometimes during the day), as well as by destruction of CEP
headquarters and other facilities afterthe CEPhad refused to allow
12 duvalierist candidates to run in the elections. The headquarters
and homes of several leading candidates were attacked, rousing
sufficient fears for their personal safety that they did not dare to
appear in public. On election day itself, observers from the United
States, representing President Reagan and various independent
human rights organizations, reported that armed bands (sup-
posedly ex-tonton macoutes), unrestrained by the military, fired
at the voters, killing 34 and wounding at least twice as many more.
Polling places opened at 6 AM, only to be closed at 8:50 AM by

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 LUNDAHL:HISTORYAS AN OBSTACLETO CHANGE 7

the CEP, thus canceling the elections. Political parties accused the
military of supporting the thugs who had intimidated the voters,
and Namphy blamed the CEP for failing to provide the necessary
security for the voters.4
Finally, on 17 January 1988, elections took place under army
surveillance and under dubious circumstances. Backed by the
Catholic Church, four of the leading presidential candidates -
Marc Bazin, Sylvio Claude, Louis Dejoie Jr. and Gerard Gourgue
- boycotted the elections and urged voters to stay home. Many,
particularly in the capital, heeded their call. In an election in which
it was estimated that no more than 35% of eligible voters par-
ticipated, the winner - with slightly more than 500/oof votes cast
- was Leslie Manigat, a former member of the Papa Doc govern-
ment before he went into exile in 1963.
According to most observers, Manigat owed his victory to the
support of the military and thus appointed Williams Regala, now
a general, to continue in his post as minister of defense in the new
government. The honeymoon ended in June, however, when
President Manigat clashed with General Namphy over the latter's
treatment of a Manigat supporter, Colonel Jean-Claude Paul. The
United States had charged Colonel Paul with active participation
in the Colombian cocaine traffic, and General Namphy took ac-
tion by transferring him from command of the Dessalines Bat-
talion, the strongest unit of the army, to army headquarters. When
Manigat moved to assert his authority by ordering Namphy into
retirement, the general retaliated, on the night of 19-20 June, with
a military coup which ended the Manigat presidency and estab-
lished Namphy himself as president of a new military government.
Haiti had made a swift return to dictatorial rule.5

THE HISTORICALPROBLEM:A CENTURYAND A

HALFOF PREDATORYRULE
IN THE POPULAR DEBATE ON HAITI, and frequently in
academic discussions as well, the Duvalier regime is viewed as an
anomaly. This is a half-truth at best, a quantitative, rather than a
qualitative, assertion, for the Duvaliers were not without prece-
dent in the history of Haiti (Heinl and Heinl, 1978, Lundahl, 1979,
1984a, 1985a, 1988a and 1988b, Trouillot, 1986). In the light of

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8 JOURNALOF INTERAMERICAN
STUDIESAND WORLDAFFAIRS

Haitian history, the Duvaliers, pere etfils, appear as but the most
recent links in a virtuallyunbroken chain of dictatorialkleptocrats,
whose origins stretch back at least one and a half centuries, if not
further.6
The French colony of Saint-Domingue had in no way been free
from corruption, so when Haiti embarked on its path as an inde-
pendent nation in 1804, it was encumbered with an unfortunate
heritage. In spite of efforts by Henry Christophe to promote hones-
ty in public administration, this heritage of corruption was never
eliminated. Instead, during the course of the 19th-century,a "soft",
or predatory, state developed. Particularlyafter the fall of Presi-
dent Jean-Pierre Boyer, in 1843, it can be argued that Haitian
politics and government displayed every possible sign of
degeneration. An essentially "private"concept of the state took
root, and the distinction between public and private funds became
blurred. Politics became merely the infighting of various cliques
in pursuit of the spoils which accrued to the holder of the
presidential office and his followers, while the peasant masses
remained entirely outside the political process except when called
upon (and/or hired) to help one or another of the contending
groups.
An operetta-like pattern was established between 1843 and
1915. With few exceptions, sitting governments lasted only for
short periods. Coups, insurrections, and civil war took place with
amazing frequency - more than a hundred times according to
one source (Heinl and Heinl, 1978:404). All too often, the attempts
were successful. During this period, only one administration
finished its term peacefully. Four presidents died in office from
natural causes, but the remainder were removed by rivals for the
spoils (Lundahl, 1985a: 186-87).
From 1843-1915, Haitian administrations were of the mafia
variety, with their main - or only - goal being to enrich the of-
ficeholders. This was glaringly true of the four presidents who suc-
ceeded Boyer. Faustin Souloque (1847-59), in true Bokassa style,
not only crowned himself emperor but shared his predilection for
luxurious living as well. Fabre Geffrard(1859-67), his successor,
proved even more ingenious when it came to privatizing public
revenue.7 As time went on, the quality of government declined
steadily to the point where the last thirtyyears prior to the US oc-
cupation (1915-34) were both scandalous and chaotic.8 Employ-

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 LUNDAHL:HISTORYAS AN OBSTACLETO CHANGE 9

ing hastily recruited peasant mercenaries (cacos), short-lived ad-

ministrationsseized power in order to plunder the public treasury.
When the vaults were empty, foreign or domestic loans were
secured - on onerous terms - which later had to be repaid by
the population at large.
In 1915, afterPresident VilbrunGuillaume Sam had been killed
by a Port-au-Princestreet mob, the political situation got so out of
hand that the United States sent in its Marines to occupy the
country. While the occupation did put a temporary end to the
political disaster by breaking up the caco armies, it failed to foster
any permanent positive change. The reorganization of the ad-
ministration, which took place in 1921-22, simply centralized all
power and authority in the hands of the US high commissioner.
Since there was no attempt to implant democracy,
authoritarianismwas simply reinforced (Schmidt, 1971). Neither
did the occupation leave a legacy of honesty in administration.
Once the occupation was over and, with it, the tight US control of
the government's day-to-day financial operations, the practices of
the 19th-century were resumed.
Stenio Vincent (1930-34) was able to remain in office primari-
ly because he cut enough people in on sharing the governmental
pie. He was followed by Elie Lescot (194146), who had already
earned a solid reputation for graft and embezzlement of public
funds before being invested with the highest office of the republic.
Dumarsais Estime (1946-50) trod closely in Lescot's footsteps, as
did Paul Magloire,who netted anything from US$12-28 million for
himself. It should come as no surprise, then, that the two Duvaliers
(1957-71 and 1971-86) managed to extract a nice, round sum in
exchange for the services they rendered their country. In the his-
toricalperspective, an honest Duvalier administrationwould have
constituted a truly revolutionary break with the past.

THE ROOTS OF THE PREDATORYSTATE

WHY DID POLITICSDEGENERATEin 19th-century Haiti?The
answer has its roots in the colonial period. The prosperity of Saint-
Domingue rested heavily on the plantation system and, in par-
ticular, on the production of sugar, the plantation crop par
excellence. During the wars of independence (1791-1803), the
plantation system was more or less destroyed, and earnings from

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10 JOURNAL OF INTERAMERICAN STUDIES AND WORLD AFFAIRS

the export of plantation crops fell to a fraction of their pre-revolu-

tionary value. The early Haitian rulers, Toussaint L'Ouvertureand
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, restored the plantation system not only
because they depended upon export income to preserve the
country's military strength in the event of a French invasion, but
also because it was a way to generate income for the non-work-
ing elite (Lundahl, 1984c and 1985b).
However, the revived plantation system did not last long (Lun-
dahl, 1979: Ch. 6) because, during the wars, the factorendowment
of the country had undergone important changes: capital equip-
ment had been destroyed, skilled administrative personnel was
no longer available, and labor would only undertake plantation
work under strictmilitarysupervision. Sugarcultivation depended
heavily on all three factors. At the same time, competition in-
creased in the international sugar market. Consequently, it was
more or less inevitable that the plantation system would fall.
Beginning in 1809, the rulers introduced a series of measures to
redistribute the land, which later developed into a spontaneous
process of subdivision. Thus, during the 19th-century, Haiti
graduallybecame converted into a peasant nation of family farms.
Destruction of the plantation system put an end to the landed
incomes of the non-working elite. The ex-slaves were free
peasants who had access to land, with or without legal title. At any
rate, they could not easily be persuaded to work on somebody
else's plantations (Lundahl, 1985a: 187-91). This, in turn, posed a
tremendous problem for the elite and those aspiring to elite status.
Since working the land themselves was out of question, alterna-
tive ways to obtain a suitable income had to be devised. The only
wealth of the country was agricultural, but, in order to tap this
wealth, control of taxation was necessary, and such control was
best obtained through control of the presidency.
A race for political supremacy thus began, as small cliques [spe-
cial interest groups, in MancurOlson's (1965 and 1982) terminol-
ogy] contended for the presidency, with the results already
outlined. Politics or, rather, politicking, became simply the best
way to secure income, and the country was subject to the worst
sort of kleptocracies, whose main concerns were (1) to tax agricul-
ture and foreign trade for private income and (2) to remain in
power. A predatory state had been created (Lundahl, 1985a: 193-
201).

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 LUNDAHL:HISTORYAS AN OBSTACLETO CHANGE 11

The US occupation changed the rules of this game. The 19th-

century had been characterized by intense competition between
presidents and would-be presidents and their respective fol-
lowers, backed by the regular army and by their cacos. The oc-
cupation forces broke up the army, completely crushed the cacos,
and created in their stead a constabulary, the Garde d'Ha'ti. After
the occupation, it was essentially this new armed force which
decided who would be president and for how long. Compared to
the 19th-century, the days of open competition and clique wars
were over, and Haitianpolitics had acquired a measure of stability.
Now the army set the rules by which funds could be extracted
from the state (Lundahl, 1985a: 201-02).
Once Papa Doc came to power, the situation changed again.
First, he broke the power of the army: he completely reshuffled
the high command several times and saw to it that only his own
loyal supporters were in charge (Lundahl, 1984a: 51-52). Further,
he created the tonton macoutes, not only to control, through ter-
ror, the civilian population, but also to provide a counterforce to
the army.10With this support in place, Papa Doc Duvalier estab-
lished the most efficient predatory machine that Haiti had ever
seen (Lundahl, 1984a, Trouillot, 1986).

WHAT HOPE FOR DEMOCRACY?

IN HIS RECENTBOOK on autocracy, Gordon Tullock makes the
point that, in the history of mankind, democracy is a rare, exotic
bird:"Thatmore people are ruled by autocracies than democracies
today, and that the same can be said of earlier periods, is obvious"
(Tullock, 1987:IX).In the Haitiancase, the situation is even worse.
The country has never had any experience of democratic rule. The
history of the rise of democracy is essentially that of Europe and
the United States during the 19th-century. Haiti remained com-
pletely outside this intellectual and political current, developing
instead, during the very same period, the predatory state just
described.
This unfortunate political background points directly to the dif-
ficult question whether there is any hope for democracy in the
country. A number of factors make the most plausible answer a
negative one. The heart of the matter is to be found in the type of
human motivation which leads to a predatory state in poor, stag-

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12 JOURNALOF INTERAMERICAN
STUDIESAND WORLDAFFAIRS

nant economies of the Haitian type (Andreski, 1966: 9-15). If

people try to maximize their incomes while observing the prin-
ciple of least effort (i.e. labor causes discomfort) in a poor
economy where productive activities are, in the main, both
onerous and unrewarding, there is a high probability that incen-
tives will become distorted - to the point that greater effort is ex-
pended toward appropriation of the fruits of the labor of others
than to the production of goods and services needed by the
citizens:
In otherwords, the energies which in an expanding economy
will be applied to production, will be canalized in a stagnant
or contracting economy into open or covert predation
(Andreski, 1966: 15).
This proposition takes on added force when applied to the pur-
suit of fortunes large enough to provide a really comfortable ex-
istence and a standard of living far above the average. In Latin
American societies, politics have often constituted not only the
safest and fastest way to great wealth, but often the only way
(Andreski, 1966: 11). It was this factor which led to the degrada-
tion of Haitian politics and the violent struggles over spoils during
the 1800s, and, as the experience of the present century has
shown, the same kind of motivation still prevails in political
circles. Consequently, in forecasting the most probable future
form of government in Haiti, one must conclude that:
...it can be stated as a general rule, to which no exception has
yet been found, that a democracy can function only in a
society which is fairly prosperous, and in which privileges
obtained through political influence are not indispensable
for making a decent living (Andreski, 1966: 11-12).
Unfortunately, autocratic regimes are often viewed as
legitimate by their citizens. The very fact that its whole political
history has been one of autocratic rule reinforces this tendency in
Haiti. As Tullock points out: "The really big way of getting
legitimacy is simply to stay in office for a period of time"(Tullock,
1987: 105). This means that the longer somebody like General
Namphy remains in power, the greater his legitimacy in the eyes
of the people. However, Tullock's dictum can be taken a step fur-
ther and made to apply not only to an individual ruler, but also to
the institution of autocracy as such, i.e., the longer a country has
been governed by autocraticrulers, the more people will perceive

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 LUNDAHL:HISTORYAS AN OBSTACLETO CHANGE 13

autocracy as a legitimate, even natural, form of government. His-

tory provides its own indoctrination. It can even be argued that
acceptance of autocracy becomes a state of mind (cf. Harrison,
1985: Ch. 4).
At the present time, autocracy is under pressure in Haiti. The
fall of Baby Doc, and the subsequent overture to politicians and
parties, created a quasi-democratic atmosphere in the country,
which brought dictatorial rule under open fire. This is the situa-
tion with which General Namphy must deal in the somewhat un-
stable present circumstances. Since a dictator "mustalways give
the impression of being strong enough so that he will continue
staying in office" (Tullock, 1987: 106), some show of force may be
required if he is to remain in office. In the longer run, however,
this will only serve to confirm the legitimacy of his regime.
Legitimacyis useful when it comes to dealing with the popula-
tion at large, since the average citizen is unlikely to be well-in-
formed as to behind-the-scene political activity, nor is it probable
that he will have the time or the means to engage in deep analysis.
For the average Haitian, the state has always been a distant entity.
Possibly, creation of some more explicit ideology will facilitatethe
task of convincing the population further(Lundahland Vedovato,
1988). However, the issue of legitimacy also arises at the intera-
tional level. In the case of Haiti, this is essentially in relation to its
powerful United States neighbor, on whom it relies for political
support and financial aid.
Two factors are likely to help the Haitian power-holder here.
First, much the same mechanism operates as with the common
citizen. After a period of time, it is the practice of international
diplomacy to recognize governments which have established de
facto control, regardless of whether they are democratic or dic-
tatorial.There is ample evidence of this. Second, and particularly
in the case of the United States, another mechanism comes into
play: the fear of communism and/or of an increase in Cuban in-
fluence in the Caribbean. On more than one occasion, Papa Doc
Duvalier found it expedient to engage in explicit flirtation with
communism in order to obtain favors from the United States, at a
time when Haiti'sstanding with the US government was very low
(Lundahl, 1984a: 57-58). Whoever the next president of Haiti may
be, whether Namphy or somebody else, must be well aware of
both this, and the Nicaraguan, situation. The president of the

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14 JOURNALOF INTERAMERICAN
STUDIESAND WORLDAFFAIRS

United States does not have to be a supporter of Namphy in order

to defend him:
...normally C will not have any particular devotion to the
present government remaining in B, but will regard a revolu-
tion or uprising there as, on the whole, destabilizing. Mainly
however, they defend B against A, not against the enemies
inside B (Tullock, 1987: 41).
However, the final result is the same. The autocratic regime
stays in power.
This brings us to the question of whether a transition from
autocratic to democratic rule may take place at all. Tullock (1987)
identifies four possible ways in which transition from autocratic
to democratic rule may take place:
1. The regime is overthrown by means of foreign intervention.
2. The regime is overthrown by a genuine popular uprising.
3. The regime is overthrown by its own higher officials.
4. The regime steps down voluntarily.
A foreign intervention is unlikely. It cannot come from Cuba,
for reasons mentioned, and it will presumably not come from the
United States either, except in the unlikely situation that a Haitian
government might choose to ally itself with Cuba. The days of
overt US intervention in the Caribbean appear to be over; it took
the US almost 30 years of Duvalier rule before it chose to apply
pressure on Baby Doc to depart - and then only after a series of
triggering domestic events. Today, a rallying point seems
remote. It is possible to withhold economic and/or military aid,
but this is not apt to provide strong incentive for a dictator to step
down.
A genuine popular uprising is even more unlikely than inter-
vention. As already argued, the average citizen has only a small
stake in overthrowing a sitting government. The benefits to be ex-
pected would be "collective" - benefits which would accrue to
all citizens regardless of individual participation - but the costs
to be borne would be individual. In a revolutionary situation, the
costs are not trivial (Lundahl, 1985a; cf. Tullock, 1974 and 1987;
and Olson, 1965 and 1982). The average citizen is not likely to risk
his neck to obtain some vaguely defined "better government." His-
torically, in Haiti as elsewhere,2 protests against the sitting
government have taken totally different forms (Lundahl, 1988a
and 1988b).

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 LUNDAHL: HISTORY AS AN OBSTACLE TO CHANGE 15

By comparison, palace coups have been quite common. As

Haiti's history indicates, from 1843-1915 the great majority of its
presidents were removed either by a palace coup or by a contend-
ing political faction staging a "revolution."From the end of the US
occupation to the presidency of Papa Doc, the Garde d'Hai't (i.e.
the army) had the decisive word when it came to making and oust-
ing presidents. In neither case were the interests of very many
people involved, and the benefits which did accrue to those few
were more of a private, than a public, nature (Lundahl, 1985a). If
history is a guide, palace coups are still likely in the future. What
is not so likely is that such coups will lead to a different form of
government. Given the essentially "private,"predatory nature of
the calculations which lead to such coups, there is no reason to
believe that a coup will produce the honest elections needed to
create a democratic government acting only within constitutional
and legislative limits.
Finally, there is the transitioneffected by voluntary withdrawal.
This is least probable. Unless a dictator is very old, his successor
is likely to perceive him as a threatwho could easily opt for a politi-
cal comeback; even if a dictator should choose to step down, the
most likely scenario is that he would be succeeded by another dic-
tator.

THE HYSTERETIC STATE13

ADMITTEDLY,THE PERSPECTIVE of this article is not hopeful

for the future of democracy and development in Haiti. The history
of the country is overwhelmingly eloquent on this point. Deye
mon, gen mon, says a Creole proverb: Beyond the mountain there
are other mountains. The same is true of Haitian politics. With the
exception of the US occupation, the country has had an unbroken
succession of kleptocratic dictators since 1843. Why should that
chain be broken now? It has been said that "one should never say
never") (Stepick, 1986), but, in the case of Haiti, it is difficult not
to agree with Gordon Tullock when he states that
Characteristically...the overthrow of the dictator simply
means that there will be another dictator. This second dic-
tatorwill normally announce thathe has popular support and
for that matter he may have it in the beginning. Basically,
however, it is one dictatorreplacing another and the policies

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16 -JOURNALOF INTERAMERICAN
STUDIESAND WORLDAFFAIRS

they follow will probablynot be radicallydifferent(Tullock,

1987:20).
Predatory autocracies -kleptocracies - have governed Haiti
for a century and a half. It may well be that decent government is
not a sufficient condition for economic development (Gun-
narsson, 1987), but, in all probability, abolition of the predatory
state is a necessary one. In the case of Haiti, this may be easier
said than done. A persistent autocraticequilibrium prevails which
will be hard to break. This may not be coincidence. Tullock has
suggested that despotism may constitute a global equilibrium in
society, while democracy is merely a local one (Tullock, 1987: 190-
91). Alternatively,using Axel Leijonhufvud'snotion of a "corridor"
as an analogy, there may exist a narrow range - the corridor -
of situations within which disturbances do not overthrow
democracy (Leijonhufvud, 1973). Within this corridor, society
preserves the mean-reverting homeostatic forces thatbring it back
to democratic rule. However, once outside this narrow range, a
global equilibrium, characterizedby autocracy and predatoriness,
is reached. In order to get away from thatequilibrium, much larger
shocks, of an unclear nature, may be needed.
This global equilibrium in Haiti possesses hysteresis-like
characteristics, in that it tends to be strongly self-preserving,
primarilybecause the practice of extracting rents via the govern-
ment machine has become extremely well entrenched and is the
driving force in the political game. (Predatory practices are more
difficult under democratic control.) 14 The fact that the state is
autocratic in one period increases the likelihood of it remaining
so in the future.
Haitihas never been in the democratic corridor.Itwas no coin-
cidence that none of the candidates for the presidency - with the
exception of MarcBazin - could come up with anything like a
coherent program (Destexhe, 1988: 30). The lack of a democratic
tradition, most blatant during the Duvalier era, impeded, if not
made impossible, the "normal"formationof political parties based
on social interest groups. This was not solely the result of
duvalierism, contrary to the contention of Alain Destexhe (1988:
36-37). The situation was exactly the same in 1957, and there was
not even any election campaign to speak of in 1950 (Trouillot,
1986: 153-54). On all three occasions, election politics con-

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 LUNDAHL:HISTORYAS AN OBSTACLETO CHANGE 17

centrated on the person of the candidate and his ambitions - not

on parties and party programs in the European sense.
The 19th-century practices and structuresof a predatory state,
which made for autocracy, have lingered on. The only major ex-
ternal shock to this system was the US occupation, but this episode
failed to lay the foundation for democracy. It simply served to
create a new mechanism - the army - by which to preserve the
autocraticstate. Essentially, then, Haitiis a hysteretic state15- not
simply one where the past has shaped the present, but also one
where history constitutes one of the strongest obstacles to change.
On 30 August 1957, three weeks before the elections that brought
Papa Doc to power, an editorial in Halti-Miroir summarized the
state of democracy in Haiti in the wake of the turbulent 1956-57
election campaign: "It is dead, almost without having lived"
(quoted by Trouillot, 1986: 160). As it seems, the 1986-88 ex-
perience is very much the same.

NOTES
1. Presumably, however, we also have a case of what Tullock calls
"regression to the mean" (1987: 165-66), not uncommon in hereditary
autocracies, here. Ceterisparibus, Baby Doc was a far less capable dic-
tator than his father.
2. The present section is based mainly on the reports of the French
daily newspapers, in particular Le Monde. Useful summaries are found
in Crotty(1987), Destexhe (1988) and Pizetty-van Eeuwen (1988).
3. For some details regarding these policies, see International
Monetary Fund (IMF, 1986) and Haiti (1986); cf. also the interview with
Delatour in Reason (1987).
4. A vivid account of the election day and the events preceding it is
given by Crotty(1987).
5. In the following, the terms "dictatorial"and "autocratic"will be
used interchangeably.
6. The following builds on Lundahl (1979: Chs. 7-8).
7. For example, a hospital was made to pay his champagne bill;
details are given by St.John (1889: 182-83).
8. For a discussion of the protest mechanisms that this called forth,
see Lundahl (1988a).
9. Delince (1979) provides an account of the Haitian armed forces
with emphasis on the Duvalier period; cf. also Pierre (1987).
10. The size of the armywas deliberately kept down. When Baby Doc
fell, the armed forces counted less than 7,000 men, including the police
and the militaryfire brigade (Destexhe, 1988: 28).

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18 JOURNALOF INTERAMERICAN
STUDIESAND WORLDAFFAIRS

11. In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration opted for closer
cooperation with Jean-Claude Duvalier's government (Preeg, 1985).
12. Tullock bluntly summarizes: "Inthe mythology of revolution, the
people rising to throw off a tyrannicalruler is the dominant theme. [...] I
regret to say that this myth is mainly myth ...] I have never come across
a clear-cut case" (1987: 53).
13. This section owes some debt of gratitude to my reading of De
Long and Jonung (1988), where the notions of hysteresis and the cor-
ridor are used in a completely different context. The reader may recall
the hysteresis notion from his or her high school physics studies, as a lag
effect when the forces acting on a body are changed. The notion is
presently en vogue in macroeconomic studies of unemployment
phenomena [cf. Blanchard and Summers (1986) and the literature
referred to in De Long and Jonung (1988)]. The notion of the corridor
was invented by Leijonhuvfud(1973) in a discussion of financial market
failures.
14. The top hierarchy of the army appears to be improving its
economic situation. When Baby Doc fell, there were only two generals
in Haiti. In July 1987, this number was increased substantially, to 16 -
with 6 being appointed as of January 1988 (Destexhe, 1988: 41). Crotty
provides slightly different figures: "...there are now [December 1987] be-
tween 16 and 19, earning between $70,000 and $100,000 plus unreported
perks and payments, many without troops to command" (1977: 10).
15. N.b., the adjective is nothysterical.

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