The 1987 Constitution set out a bottom-up structure of communal sections, councils and assemblies intended to spread power and public services beyond the capital. Deane asks why so little of it functions, and answers with eight semistructured expert interviews with Haitian and Haiti-based specialists alongside a content analysis of the relevant law. Two findings emerge. The term decentralization carries a meaning in Haiti shaped by the country's own spatial and social history, in which rural people were stamped paysan at birth, attended schools run by the agriculture ministry, and were cut off by roads left ruined on purpose. The blockage then sits inside the central government: deputies, whose role the law never defined, have installed themselves as brokers between constituents and the state, retaining funds meant for mayors and running small visible projects that make mayors look incompetent while yielding kickbacks. Partial implementation, she concludes, has reproduced autocratic practice under constitutional cover.