Publishers Weekly
★ 11/27/2023
Johnston, a senior research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, debuts with a powerful and disturbing examination of decades of chaos in Haiti caused by outside forces, including the U.S., the United Nations, and what he evocatively terms the “aid-industrial complex.” Johnston’s focus is primarily on the period between 2010 and 2021, an era bookended by two devastating earthquakes, when the country’s supposed reconstruction with the help of billions of dollars in aid was sidetracked by greed and corruption. For example, after the 2010 quake, agribusiness firm Monsanto donated more than 100 tons of hybrid or genetically modified seeds, which by design supplanted crops that naturally produced seeds, thus creating a new, for-profit market for the company. Johnston lends immediacy to his account through stories of individual dispossession, such as that of the residents of Caracol, who were displaced by construction of an industrial park and never compensated or adequately rehoused. Bill Clinton, named a United Nations special envoy to the country in 2009, and his wife, Hillary, who oversaw America’s Haiti policy as secretary of state, come off poorly as patronizing would-be saviors, but they have plenty of company. This cri de coeur from an expert with firsthand knowledge of what ails Haiti is a must-read. (Jan.)
From the Publisher
"Magisterial....Johnston’s dogged and comprehensive research vividly underscores the role international actors have played in hurling Haiti toward its current morass of political intrigue, structural violence, and institutional collapse." —Dr. Robert Maguire, Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and former Representative for Haiti and the Caribbean of the Inter-American Foundation
"In Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti, Jake Johnston weaves together the voices of politicians, aid contractors, United Nations officials, and, most importantly, Haitians fighting for their country and for their lives. Through reporting, testimonials, and firsthand accounts, Johnston exposes the intricate webs of power surrounding Haiti from its revolutionary beginnings to today. With precision, empathy, and an engaging narrative style, Johnston shines a light on the relentless battle for and against Haiti, challenging readers to confront the injustices inflicted upon a nation that continues to resist against all odds." - Edwidge Danticat, author of Brother, I'm Dying
"Jake Johnston’s Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti should be required reading for all world leaders before they even think about meddling in Haitian politics. Challenging popular notions of what it means to best support Haiti, and with decades-long experience reporting on Haitian affairs to support his succinct and always shrewd analyses, Johnston shines an uncomfortable light on the international community’s contributions to Haiti’s recent tragedies. In so doing, he dismantles the idea that aid after disaster has anything to do with humanitarianism, while never losing sight of Haiti’s potential for self-recovery."
-Marlene L. Daut, Professor of French and African American Studies at Yale University, and author of Awakening the Ashes: An Intellectual History of the Haitian Revolution
“Jake Johnston’s Aid State is a harrowing journey into the heart of modern neocolonial darkness, revealing the thick network of international organizations, including the United Nations, that have occupied Haiti for decades. In the name of humanitarian aid and development, the occupiers have brought sexual abuse, disease, and death. Johnston writes movingly about a country and its people that survives under permanent occupation. An indispensable book.”
-Greg Grandin is a professor of history at Yale University and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Fordlandia
" In Aid State, Johnston combines his prodigious research with first person accounts from interviews with a remarkably broad range of Haitian, US and other foreign actors. The result is a troubling portrait of US policy across Democratic and Republican administrations. . . Johnston‘s controversial thesis has implications far beyond one small country, suggesting the possibility that a new approach of respect for self-determination and encouragement of self-sufficiency in poor countries around the world could pave a much surer path to the spread of durable democracies we claim to seek." - former U.S. Congressman Andy Levin
" Powerful...This cri de coeur from an expert with firsthand knowledge of what ails Haiti is a must-read." - Publishers Weekly starred review
"Meticulous and searing...rivetingly told." —Laurent Dubois, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Magisterial" —The Nation
"An excellent debut about the social problems and distortions created by foreign aid. Readers who want a nuanced take on how foreign aid has hobbled Haiti for more than a century. . . will find an account that draws extensively from Haitians and foreigners in the main circles of money and power. Anyone who has visited or worked in Haiti over the past decades will find Johnston’s book to be of great value as he labors to unravel the country’s recent political miasma." - Foreign Policy
"Invaluable new book..."—Pooja Bhatia, New York Review of Books
Kirkus Reviews
2023-10-21
A comprehensive, disheartening study of Haiti as a money pit of humanitarian aid.
Johnston, a senior research associate for the Center for Economic and Policy Research, offers a useful comparison of Haiti and Afghanistan, “two of the most aid-dependent countries on the planet.” Both have received the support of an “alphabet soup” of governmental and nongovernmental aid agencies. But although the military dimension of aid to Afghanistan is well known, in the case of Haiti, “the country [is] ‘politically unstable,’ but few [care] to ponder why.” Combined with corruption, political violence, and a string of devastating natural disasters, that instability has sent streams of Haitians fleeing the country, most with the U.S. as their intended destination. So it is that 14,000 people, most Haitians, were encamped under a bridge over the Rio Grande in June 2021, the very moment when, by Johnston’s account, Joe Biden started to walk back promises of immigration reform that would undo the draconian policies of his predecessor. For many years, notes the author, Venezuela was Haiti’s chief donor, a situation that changed with the collapse of the Chavez regime; yet Venezuela was not a favored destination of refugees. Meanwhile, at home, Johnston notes, Haitian politicians have long done their best to make a failed state of their country, looting the public treasury and essentially escaping punishment for their crimes. Baby Doc Duvalier, for example, made off with somewhere between $300 and $500 million, much of it foreign aid funds, fulfilling his role in “a true family kleptocracy.” Even with coups and assassinations, foreign funds continue to pour in, including significant sums from the U.S., which, Johnston suggests, is hoping that with enough money, Haitians will stay home.
A sobering view of the inevitable failures of international assistance when corruption is the dominant ethos.
