On January 6, 2025, journalists David Adams and Frances Robles published the report \u201cMassacre after massacre: Haiti\u2019s grim spiral into a failed state\u201d in the New York Times. The article highlighted the collapse of public security in the country, revealing Haiti\u2019s institutional fragility in the face of advancing gangs and the local government\u2019s inability to address the crisis. Months later, on June 25, Robles revisited the topic in \u201cA year after the landing of an international force, Haiti is no closer to peace\u201d, advocating for a more decisive response from the international community, especially the United States, the main funder of the latest UN mission in Haiti (Multinational Security Support \u2013 MSS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beyond the data and analysis of the violence devastating the Haitian population, one expression stands out: \u201cfailed state.\u201d More than a technical diagnosis, the term carries significant political, symbolic, and historical weight. It has been widely used by government officials, academics, and the media\u2014particularly in the United States and other countries\u2014to describe Haiti\u2019s condition. Its frequent use reinforces the perception of Haiti as incapable of self-governance, thereby legitimizing external actions under a supposedly humanitarian guise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2022, former U.S. ambassador to Haiti Pamela White stated during a hearing before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs that \u201cHaiti is a failed state,\u201d and called for immediate military intervention: \u201cWhat is needed now is not a complicated five-year plan, but boots on the ground\u2014now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This logic is also present in recent publications affiliated with universities, such as the article \u201cHaiti is nearing failed state status,\u201d published by News@TheU at the University of Miami (2024), as well as in influential think tanks, including \u201cIs Haiti a failed state?\u201d by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (2019), and \u201cAsk the experts: What drives Haiti\u2019s fragility?\u201d by the United States Institute of Peace (2022).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These examples are not exceptions; they are part of a structured narrative. Despite growing criticism of the term \u201cfailed state\u201d after the War on Terror\u2014including the renaming of the controversial index developed by the Fund for Peace from \u201cFailed States Index\u201d to \u201cFragile States Index\u201d in 2014\u2014the expression continues to circulate in political, academic, and media discourse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This narrative operates on multiple levels: it simplifies Haiti\u2019s crisis, conceals its historical roots, and promotes external solutions as the only viable ones. Far from being neutral or merely descriptive, it draws on a global epistemic hierarchy that privileges Western state models while delegitimizing local forms of organization and resistance. In doing so, it constructs a racialized image of Haiti as ungovernable, violent, and dependent\u2014thus reinforcing the logic of intervention and external control<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Haiti was the first Black republic in the world, born out of a successful anti-slavery revolution in 1804 that defeated Napoleon\u2019s army and defied the colonial system. Since then, Haitian history has been marked not only by internal instability but also by recurrent foreign interference, economic sanctions, military occupations, and the imposition of governance models incompatible with its social and political reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ignoring this historical context is part of the problem. By insisting on the label \u201cfailed state,\u201d international discourse overlooks the structural causes of Haiti\u2019s crisis: prolonged economic exploitation, historic debt burdens, trade sanctions, deliberate weakening of national institutions, and the repeated failure of foreign interventions. Even worse, it presents failure as intrinsic to Haiti, rather than as a product of broader historical and political processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Silencing alternative forms of governance<\/p>\n\n\n\n This rhetoric also functions as a tool to erase alternative political structures within Haiti. Local initiatives of self-management, community resistance, and popular sovereignty are often dismissed or delegitimized for not fitting liberal Western molds. This reinforces the idea that Haitians are incapable of self-governance, repackaging 19th-century civilizing discourses under a supposedly technical veneer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The selectivity of this narrative is also striking. Countries in the Global North facing deep institutional crises, democratic erosion, or social collapse are rarely labeled as \u201cfailed states.\u201d The term is disproportionately applied to countries in the Global South, particularly in Africa and the Caribbean, exposing its racialized and geopolitical dimensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As the current UN mission in Haiti (MSS) nears its scheduled end in October 2025\u2014and with international funding set to expire in September\u2014it is urgent to reassess the discourses being mobilized to support either the continuation or withdrawal of foreign intervention. Rather than fostering awareness of Haitian-led solutions, the rhetoric of incapacity is being revived to justify renewed interference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Questioning the use of the term \u201cfailed state\u201d is therefore more than a semantic dispute\u2014it is a battle over narratives and political recognition. Challenging this framing creates space for more just and informed analyses, attuned to the complexity of Haiti\u2019s situation. It also calls into question the universalist assumptions of what constitutes a \u201cfunctional state,\u201d who defines it, and whose interests it serves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such a shift in perspective requires political courage and intellectual responsibility\u2014both from the international political community and from academia. These actors must recognize their role in reproducing global inequalities and maintaining systems that silence peripheral voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Only then will it be possible to build more respectful and horizontal forms of engagement with Haiti\u2014acknowledging its legacy of resistance, its unique modes of organization, and its capacity for political leadership. The country\u2019s future will not be built on stigmas and imposed interventions, but through dialogue, historical justice, and respect for its sovereignty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n