Michel Martelly: Haiti's New Caesar and the Prospects for Democracy
2013; Routledge; Volume: 35; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/07393148.2013.790697
ISSN1469-9931
Autores Tópico(s)Politics and Society in Latin America
ResumoThis article argues that Haiti's new president, Michel Martelly, represents a populist-authoritarian project that combines limited forms of inclusion with repression in an effort to stabilize Haiti's polarized social structure. Nearly a decade after a UN stabilization mission was deployed to resolve Haiti's perennial class conflict in the interests of its small elite, Michel Martelly's populist authoritarianism signifies a homegrown attempt to break through the class stalemate through a reconstructed security state, weak social policies, new mechanisms of co-optation, and a nationalist discourse that obfuscates the country's social conflicts. In this sense, Martelly has emerged as Haiti's Caesar in a general process of authoritarian regression within the longstanding struggle to create a more democratic society. The article adopts a neo-Gramscian perspective to understand the national and transnational dimensions of this struggle and its relationship to larger processes of democratization in Latin America and the Caribbean.
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