Suchergebnisse

Examines background to the 1996 democratic elections of presidents in the Dominican Republic and in Haiti and the improvement of relations between the two countries. With reference to President René Preval of Haiti and President Leonel Fernández of the Dominican Republic.

AbstractSharing the same island, the Dominican Republic and Haiti are confronting similar environmental challenges. Located on the path of tropical storms, Hispaniola Island is frequently exposed to natural disasters like heavy rainfall, flooding and landslides, aggravated by human‐induced environmental degradation. At the same time, the differences between the two nations are extreme. Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and a well‐known case in environmental studies as nearly all of its forests have disappeared. In the Dominican Republic, a middle‐income country known for its beaches and tourist resorts, deforestation and soil erosion is also a problem, but to a much lower extent compared to its neighbour state. Above all, the rural economy in both countries is suffering from both sudden disasters and slow‐onset environmental degradation. Together with the lack or withdrawal of state support, the incentives for migration as an adaptation strategy are increasing in this panorama of environmental degradation and economic losses. On the basis of field research in selected regions of both countries, this paper analyses the impacts of environmental change on internal and international migration flows on Hispaniola Island.

I examine the effects democratization, institution building, and colonization have on the political and economic stability and inequality in the Caribbean; specifically, I argue that each of these variables contributes to the political and economic inequality experienced between the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, the two states that comprise the island of Hispaniola. While Haiti and the Dominican Republic's colonization narratives differ, each state's response to democratization, and its efforts to rebuild and maintain institutions, is integral in understanding why political inequality currently exists on the island and differs between both states. Additionally, this paper finds that the legacy of colonization should be considered a major component of economic inequality between the two states. Ultimately, the success of democratization, the strength of institutions, and the ability to create and maintain a strong economic system explains why the Dominican Republic experiences less inequality than Haiti. These findings shed light on greater political and economic inequality trends and challenges found in the Caribbean region.

This article focuses on M�d�ric Louis �lie Moreau de Saint-M�ry's Description Topographique et Politique de la partie espagnole de l'Isle Saint-Domingue (1796) and his Description Topographique, Physique, Civile, Politique et Historique de la partie fran�aise de l'Isle Saint-Domingue (1797). The Descriptions were both written before the beginning of the French Revolution and the 1791 slave revolt in Saint Domingue but were published when the colonial frontier had been abolished (at least de jure if not de facto) by the 1795 Peace of Basle. Overall, the article argues that the two Descriptions are ultimately committed to the (re)inscription of the colonial frontier but intriguingly oscillate between its erasure and its reinforcement. It begins by focusing on Saint-M�ry's territorial projections and appropriative landscaping of the Spanish colony; it highlights the important role played by the border in the racial politics of Hispaniola and then revisits Saint-Mery's border politics on the island in the light of the author's conviction that France should reannex Louisiana, given to Spain in 1762.

Islanders and Empire examines the role smuggling played in the cultural, economic, and socio-political transformation of Hispaniola from the late sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. With a rare focus on local peoples and communities, the book analyzes how residents of Hispaniola actively negotiated and transformed the meaning and reach of imperial bureaucracies and institutions for their own benefit. By co-opting the governing and judicial powers of local and imperial institutions on the island, residents could take advantage of, and even dominate, the contraband trade that reached the island's shores. In doing so, they altered the course of the European inter-imperial struggles in the Caribbean by limiting, redirecting, or suppressing the Spanish crown's policies, thus taking control of their destinies and that of their neighbors in Hispaniola, other Spanish Caribbean territories, and the Spanish empire in the region.

Introduction -- Colonial Origins: Hispaniola in the Sixteenth Century -- Smuggling, Sin, and Survival, 1580-1600 -- Repressing Smugglers: The Depopulations of Hispaniola, 1604-06 -- Tools of Colonial Power: Officeholders, Violence, and Enslaved African Exploitation in Santo Domingo's Cabildo -- "Prime Mover of All Machinations". Rodrigo Pimentel, Smuggling, and the Artifice of Power -- Neighbors, Rivals, and Partners: Non-Spaniards and the Rise of Saint-Domingue -- Conclusion.