Governing failure: development,aid and audit in Haiti |
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| Authors: | Daniel O'Connor Kara Brisson-Boivin Suzan Ilcan |
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| Institution: | 1. Daniel O'Connor is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo, Canada. His recent work focuses on issues of the international rule of law, interstate governance and the policing of borders, and security intelligence and policing networks. He has published research articles in various journals including Criminology and Criminal Justice, International Journal of the Sociology of Law, and Punishment and Society;2. Kara Brisson-Boivin is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada. Her research examines international governmentality studies and the rule of law, and analyses efforts that aim to bolster the international rule of law in the case of the reconstruction of Haitian penal justice;3. Suzan Ilcan is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo, and the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Canada. She is the recent co-author of Governing the Poor: Exercises of Poverty Reduction, Practices of Global Aid (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011) and editor of Mobilities, Knowledge, and Social Justice (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2013) |
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| Abstract: | This paper analyses practices for monitoring, tracking and assessing the international aid and reconstruction efforts in Haiti in an attempt to ‘build back better’ from the devastation of the January 2010 earthquake. We suggest that aid and reconstruction efforts filter through an international network of development organisations. This network also acts as a governing auspice, overseeing the transformation of Haiti from a ‘failed state’ to a strong democratic state. The central governing mechanism in this reconstruction effort involves the embedding of the ideas and practices of audit within Haitian political and civic culture. We reveal how, in Haiti, this culture of audit monitors aid and reconstruction through biopolitical technologies such as benchmarks and performance indicators, and through the constitution of calculable and accountable entities. More than a means of implementing disaster recovery, audit culture is a technique of biopolitical governance that aims to transform Haiti's state, civic institutions and citizens into entities accountable to an international development agenda. |
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