Exporting Democracy to Haiti: A Military Perspective
Abstract
The United States' democratization strategy since World War II demonstrates an estimated success rate of less than 3%. America currently uses a counterinsurgency / line of effort approach in democratization. This approach seeks to shape an environment that protects democratic behavior but fails to address a country's democratic propensities, more specifically the potential of its attitudes and values with respect to democracy. A superior method is the path-dependent approach that seeks to exploit the potential of a country's prevailing attitudes and values by harnessing its democratic propensities. This paper analyzes the American military interventions of Haiti in 1915, 1994, and 2004 from a path-dependent perspective to determine whether it could have enabled better results. The United States used a counterinsurgency / line of effort approach to democratization during its first and second interventions in Haiti; both resulted in a failure to affect Haiti's democratic propensities. The United States used a hybrid path-dependent and counterinsurgency / line of effort approach to democratization during its third intervention of Haiti resulting in a tangible enrichment of Haiti's democratic propensities. The results suggest a path-dependent approach to stability operations has a better probability of success than the current approach used by the United States.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- May 22, 2010
- Accession Number
- ADA526184
Entities
People
- Jean-michel T. Guerin
Organizations
- United States Army Command and General Staff College