Citizenship and democratization in Haiti

Abstract

The concept of citizenship and its political crystallization are fundamental elements of modern democracy. Democracy, even in its minimal form, is not possible unless its members conceive of themselves as citizens who are inherently endowed with certain rights. The sense of citizenship is thus critical in the process of democratization; its development erodes the legitimacy of authoritarianism and contributes to the rise of civil society.1 I seek to demonstrate, however, that while the sense of citizenship is an essential prerequisite for democratization, it is not a sufficient condition for the establishment of democracy in poor societies emerging from long years of dictatorship. In such societies, as a close examination of the fall of the Duvalier dictatorship in Haiti shows, citizenship has its limitations because it is easily undermined by the obdurate constraints of scarcity nurturing patron/client relationships and personalistic forms of messianism.