ABSTRACT
Discovered by Columbus in 1492 during his first voyage to the Americas, Haiti has experienced all shades of development—except perhaps that of effective modern political and economic management. The most charitable characterization of Haiti's public administration is that the government has been at its relative best when pursuing a policy of benign neglect, leaving most of Haiti's peasants to their own devices. After independence in 1804 the early Haitian leaders faced the traditional patterns of nineteenth-century power politics. As a smaller state, Haiti, if dealt with at all, was treated as an object of policy. Consolidation of political power in the hands of strongmen has made the armed forces the institutional pillar of society. Born out of revolutionary violence and later suffering socioeconomic destruction, Haiti never succeeded in building the structures of a civilian society capable of minimizing the rule of force.
