New Wine in Old Bottles

Abstract

“New Wine in Old Bottles” examines the intersection of external political actors with the Haitian elite to understand how political outcomes are determined in Haiti. It analyzes the international intervention in Haiti’s 2010 presidential elections, when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travelled to Haiti in order to salvage an election that was deemed fraudulent and deceptive. Such an assessment was curious as the U.S. and the international community had spent over twenty-three million dollars to finance the process and oversaw the whole operation from voter registration to the counting of the ballots. The chapter argues that such actions were symptomatic of U.S. involvement during the period from 2004 to 2014, when the international community was no longer working behind the scenes in Haiti to impose a government, but rather worked overtly, often in conjunction with local elites, to impose its will.