Popular Sovereignty versus State Sovereignty: Haiti,Popular Equality and the Birth of the Neocolonial State

Abstract

Through a review of the two works below, I discuss how the Saint Domingue/Haiti Revolutions clarify the history of the opposition between popular sovereignty and state sovereignty. The people and the state developed as distinct political actors throughout the nineteenth century in particular. The former constructed a completely new society founded on egalitarian norms influenced by African cultures. The latter failed to establish its sovereignty and reverted to a colonial form, thus illustrating the core characteristics of the neocolonial state now widespread in the Global South in general and in Africa in particular.