Assessing Political Legitimacy Amidst International Intervention in Haiti in Comparative Perspective

UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO Ph.D. Programme in Political Studies 32nd Cohort GRADUATE SCHOOL IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES Ph.D. Dissertation Unpacking Peacebuilding – Assessing Political Legitimacy Amidst International Intervention In Haiti In Comparative Perspective Mariana dos Santos Parra Academic Year 2018-2019 UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO Ph.D. Programme In Political Studies 32nd Cohort GRADUATE SCHOOL IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES Ph.D. Dissertation Unpacking Peacebuilding – Assessing Political Legitimacy Amidst International Intervention In Haiti In Comparative Perspective Mariana dos Santos Parra Supervisor: Prof. Fabrizio Coticchia Director: Prof. Matteo Jessoula Academic Year 2018-2019 To the people of Haiti, especially to those who daily resist and struggle to survive, to those who dream and struggle for a better future, despite the many forces that conspire against it. 3 Acknowledgments I am grateful, first of all, to my grandmother Amparo de Jesus (in memoriam), as her love and education made me who I am. To my husband Raphael, who was always there for me, in moments of happiness and insight, and in the dark hours of doubt, insecurity and confusion. He was there to support me and to make me laugh when there was nothing else to do. I thank my supervisor, Fabrizio Coticchia, for the constant support, for challenging me to deliver my best. I thank my advisor during the visiting research period at the University of Bremen, Klaus Schlichte, for our fruitful intellectual exchanges, and for his moral support, which was very important and meaningful for me, in the midst of my constant moves, and the permanent feeling of being an outsider. This might have brought me the ‘advantage of the pariah,’ as Hannah Arendt noted, but I believe it is hard to take such advantage without some help and recognition along the way. I am grateful to all my interviewees during my field research in Haiti, for their generosity, for sharing their time, their thoughts about their troubled country, and often painful memories, especially concerning 2010’s earthquake. I thank in particular the anthropologist Pedro Braum, Viva Rio’s representative in Haiti, who wrote a fundamental thesis about the armed and non-armed urban groups of Port-au-Prince, the ‘baz’, based on a unique ethnographic work. He was my informant and we had crucial conversations until the conclusion of the dissertation. The period I spent in Haiti deeply changed my worldview, my understanding about almost everything. I hope I can one day reciprocate it. 5 Abstract The thesis examines the legitimacy of the United Nations stabilisation mission present in Haiti from 2004 to 2017 to the local population, and how this configuration affected the outcomes achieved by the operation, as well as its long-term impact on the social and political conditions prevalent in the country. A comparative analysis with the cases of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, East Timor and Somaliland is performed in order to contrast the findings of the case study, and to enable more generalizable conclusions concerning the question of political legitimacy in postcolonial and developing countries affected by violent conflict, political instability and international interventions. Beyond the empirical analysis, the thesis aims to bring a theoretical contribution, presenting critical points for theory refinement concerning political legitimacy, especially in the contexts concerned here. The thesis argues that the peace-as-statebuilding paradigm of international interveners have contributed for the (re)production of predatory political economies, violent contestation and further social and political fragmentation in Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo and Afghanistan, and reflects on how the international humanitarian apparatus can support societies affected so endogenous political processes can develop for the achievement of stability and democratisation. 7 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ______________________________________________________ 13 1.1. Objectives _____________________________________________________ 18 1.2. Methods _______________________________________________________ 25 1.2.1. How to assess legitimacy?______________________________________ 29 1.2.2. Legitimacy and its social and political effects – some assumptions ______ 32 1.2.3. Selection of the case study and comparative analysis _________________ 36 1.2.4. Field research in Haiti _________________________________________ 38 2. Puzzling out political legitimacy in the postcolonial era and in the context of international interventions ____________________________________________ 43 2.1. International normative development and the process of decolonisation _____ 46 2.2. Political legitimacy – rethinking the concept and its need for contextualisation in the postcolony ______________________________________________________ 52 2.2.1. How civil conflict and chronic instability constrain and shape individuals’ choices and behaviour? _____________________________________________ 55 2.2.2. Legitimacy and human agency under chronic instability and civil conflict 58 2.2.3. Power, violence and legitimacy – between contestation and maintenance of the status quo and reproduction of violent conflict ________________________ 63 2.2.4. Exchanges with external actors through dynamics of extraversion and its social and political effects ___________________________________________ 68 Figure 2 ___________________________________________________________ 71 2.3. Political legitimacy, self-determination and Responsibility to Protect in a globalised world ____________________________________________________ 71 2.4. The peace as statebuilding paradigm, political legitimacy and the foundation of the polity __________________________________________________________ 79 3. Haiti under Minustah – political legitimacy amid international intervention and the liberal statebuilding project ________________________________________ 89 3.1. Historical background: Haitian society and politics between the struggle for independence, authoritarianism and foreign interventionism __________________ 92 3.1.1. The Haitian Revolution and the process of State formation in Haiti _____ 93 3.1.2. The US military occupation ____________________________________ 95 3.1.3. Duvalierism: totalitarian legacy and dependency ____________________ 97 3.1.4. Struggle for democratisation amidst a totalitarian legacy ______________ 99 3.1.5. Aristide’s second government and the context of the establishment of Minustah _______________________________________________________ 101 9 3.2. Minustah’s ‘security first’ approach, legitimacy and the reproduction of instability and crisis in Haiti __________________________________________ 103 3.2.1. 2004-2006: Political crisis, civil conflict, foreign intervention and Minustah security enforcement ______________________________________________ 105 3.2.2. 2006 – 2010: Preval’s election, DDR, Community Violence Reduction and Security Sector Reform ____________________________________________ 117 3.2.3. 2010 – 2017: Earthquake, Martelly’s election and democratic reversal __ 125 3.3. Concluding remarks _____________________________________________ 135 4. Political legitimacy, peace and statebuilding in comparative perspective ___ 143 4.1. Democratic Republic of Congo – International intervention, statebuilding violence and the reproduction of decentralised violence ____________________ 144 4.1.1. Historical background ________________________________________ 144 4.1.2. International intervention, the peace-as-statebuilding paradigm and the reproduction of decentralised violence ________________________________ 146 4.1.3. International intervention and the maintenance of a predatory Leviathan 150 4.1.4. DR Congo and Haiti: reproduction of violence and predatory politics and the role of international interveners _____________________________________ 153 4.2. Afghanistan – Externally-driven statebuilding, intervener’s arbitrary violence, war economy and continuation of insurgency and violence __________________ 157 4.2.1. Historical background ________________________________________ 157 4.2.2. 2001 US-led intervention – legitimacy problem from the outset _______ 159 4.2.3. Intervener’s variations and mixed strategies and the overall effect of arbitrary violence ________________________________________________________ 161 4.2.4. Haiti and Afghanistan – different socio-historical contexts, similar outcomes concerning the reproduction of violence and predatory politics _____________ 165 4.3. East Timor – Genocidal state violence, international rescue and minority’s statebuilding ______________________________________________________ 169 4.3.1. Historical background ________________________________________ 170 4.3.2. The end of the Cold War and the window of opportunity for East Timor 171 4.3.3. UNTAET performance – international interveners’ blueprint and the local political dynamics ________________________________________________ 173 4.3.4. UN intervention for self-determination in East Timor – a different story of statebuilding ____________________________________________________ 178 4.4. Somaliland – the successful counterfactual? Locally-driven statebuilding as the alternative story of peacebuilding ______________________________________ 180 4.4.1. Historical Background________________________________________ 181 10 4.4.2. Democratisation through

Load more