The Military and Society in Haiti

• Author(s): Michel S. Laguerre,
• Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
• Pages: 223
• ISBN_10: 0870497731
  ISBN_13: 9780870497735
  
• Language: en
• Categories: Political Science / General ,

Description:... This book is a structural and hermeneutic analysis of civil-military relations in Haiti. The equilibrium theory of civil-military relations developed here postulates that the stability of a political system capable of preventing military intervention is the result of three sets of balanced relationships: those obtaining between the military and civil society, between the military and civilian government, and between the civil society and the civilian government. An unresolved conflict in one or more of the relationships is potentially capable of offsetting the balance of forces and leading to military intervention.
This study clarifies our understanding of key issues that have plagued the political stability of the state. It shows that military intervention cannot succeed without civilian cooperation. The Haitian political system has evolved so that civil society increasingly has the means of forcing the military into the barracks. The ability to achieve this end depends on the political will of civil society to organize itself so as to fulfill its own democratic mission.