Haiti: From Revolutionary Slaves to Powerless Citizens; Essays on the Politics and Economics of Underdevelopment, 1804–2013 by Alex Dupuy (review)

Alex Dupuy has earned a highly respected reputation in Haitian studies for his probing scholarly analyses of the complex structures that underpin Haitian political and economic life. Any new book from him is therefore surely welcome. This concise volume—his fourth—distills several of his main contributions to the study of Haitian political economy. Beyond that, it is also an indication of Dupuy’s current scholarly concerns.

The six essays that form the core of the book are appropriately organized in chronological order. Three are revisions of work previously published as book chapters. A short introduction threads the essays together and explains their principal arrangement. Three concern late eighteenth-century Saint-Domingue and the consequences of the Revolution for the unfolding of nineteenth-century Haiti. The latter half of the book gives special focus to the post-1986 predicament when “maximalist” democratic imperatives were subverted by “minimalist” democracy. Central to each chapter is a close reflection on the way Haiti was treated by external forces that, more than anything, served to exploit rather than assist.

Theoretical issues surface early. The first chapter is a perceptive critique of Michel Foucault’s treatment of the “race question.” Dupuy points to the historical contexts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that shaped meanings of race. He argues persuasively that the rise of modern capitalism introduced a “new biological racism” (18). This racism was developed by Europeans in the process of empire building in Saint-Domingue and the rest of the Americas. This was a historical issue Foucault ignored in his discussion of race, which, according to Dupuy, “treated Europe as if its modern history was decoupled from its imperialistic practices” (29).

Dupuy’s unease with classical interpretations of race, slavery, and revolutionary Saint-Domingue/Haiti is a recurring theme in the book. Through trenchant analyses of long-held views, he opens up space to present a fresh understanding of the operation of power dynamics throughout the course of Haitian history. Consider his response to Aimé Césaire’s famous Toussaint Louverture (1960). Contrary to Césaire and others who emphasize a sort of unity of perspective between members of the revolutionary leadership and the freedpeople, Dupuy highlights an inherent divide. Louverture, Dessalines, and Christophe had contrasting attitudes to French governance, yet all “transformed themselves into a new ruling class opposed to the interests of the former slaves” (35). This new class formed the basis of a class division that would play out aggressively in the struggles between the “economic and state bourgeoisie” for power after 1804. At a more fundamental level, the division between the property-owning bourgeoisie and the peasant majority influenced how the political economy would evolve.

Dupuy’s discussion here gives explanation to the frequency of dictatorships throughout the century. Because state power could not be inherited by relatives, the country’s rulers resorted to authoritarianism, unilateral extension of their mandates, and coups to ensure predominance. The desperation for control and the tenuous relationship between both halves of the dominant class also made the state vulnerable to the corruptive influences of foreign commercial interest groups. In the late nineteenth century, these conditions facilitated a cycle of overthrows and short-term administrations. It is this fratricidal struggle, Dupuy argues, that was the most determinative factor in Haiti’s underdevelopment during the first century after its independence.

Such battles played out within the confines of a political elite class that has always been few in number. The peasantry—the vast majority of the Haitian population—successfully managed to achieve land ownership after 1804, yet was nevertheless devoid of economic and political power and subjected to the impositions of the dominant class. As Dupuy shows, the process of “proletarianization” of the peasantry intensified with the US occupation. After 1934, the structure put into place by the occupation further left the majority...