2025 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 7(2) history of political upheaval, the growth of a landholding upper class and social and political discontent or disorder.21 That is, the failure of the Haitian state to see continuity in its political institutions which promoted the fulfilment of citizenship, as I discuss throughout this piece, was not due to a loss of spirit, but was a result of coloniality and interventionism that supressed any hope of effectuating citizenship. The colonial project could not accept the prosperity of a post-colonial Haiti, and so a neo-colonial attack on its independence commenced. As Fabios Santos notes, ‘systematic isolation, impoverishment, foreign occupations and interventions in the name of humanitarianism, and the lack of legal migration routes’ is most clearly illustrated in Haiti above any post-colonial state.22 Haiti, the first post-colonial Black republic and once the wealthiest in its region, now experiences political instability rooted in multiple complex causes. In the early 20th century, political assassinations and the routine ousting of leaders marked Haiti’s political landscape. A nearly twenty-year U.S. occupation then precipitated Haiti’s subsequent three-decade dictatorship under François Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude. 23 Haiti has since experienced ‘multiple foreign interventions, chronic political instability, social unrest, and devastating natural disasters’, 24 destabilising the region. Presently, gangs control most of Port-au-Prince, shutting down the city’s airport, gasoline refinery and essential services, leaving residents with limited access to their communities and heightened fear. 25 Moreover, the country faces an unemployment rate of nearly 40 percent and is heavily reliant on foreign aid. 26 Such circumstances demonstrate a loss of opportunities for reciprocal relationships amongst the citizenry and with government characteristic of de facto statelessness. The downfall of the Haitian Revolution was not a loss of the revolutionary spirit, as Arendt may have contended, but a prolonged attack on Haitian liberation by the West. The outcome of which is that the Haitian populace is left in a position of de facto statelessness. Lindsey Kingston’s notion of functioning citizenship suggests that someone may hold nationality yet lack mutual, beneficial relations with their state or face ostracisation from their community, resulting in de facto statelessness. 27 I contend that in the wake of centuries of Western dominance, this has become the existence of those within Haiti. III CASE STUDY I apply the theoretical concept of de facto statelessness to the Haitian populace, using a case study approach to explore and develop its nuances in a real-world context. A case study involves a ‘detailed examination of an aspect of a historical 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 ibid 263–4. Santos (n 5) 21. Diana Roy and Rocio Cara Labrador, ‘Haiti’s Troubled Path to Development’, Council on Foreign Relations (Web Page, 2024) <https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/haitis-troubledpath-development#chapter-title-0-1>, archived at <perma.cc/3YFS-GXZF>. ibid. Ernesto Sagás, ‘Haiti Is in Crisis, but Foreign Intervention Comes with an Ugly Past’ The Conversation (online, 19 March 2024) <https://theconversation.com/haiti-is-in-crisis-butforeign-intervention-comes-with-an-ugly-past-225941>, archived at <perma.cc/TJL3-SXS3>. Tatiana Wah, ‘Engaging the Haitian Diaspora’ (2013) 9 (Spring) The Cairo Review of Global Affairs 56. Lindsey Kingston, Fully Human: Personhood, Citizenship, and Rights (Oxford University Press 2019). 130