The Constitution Haiti adopted in 1987, a year after Jean-Claude Duvalier fled and twenty-nine years of dictatorship ended, called for decentralizing the state. Deane finds the country no nearer that goal now than it was then.

Only parts of the decentralizing framework were ever put in place, and the resulting administrative holes have hardened into a political impasse. Instead of shared power across levels of government and wider inclusion, which the drafters intended, those gaps have propped up autocratic rule that outlived the dictator's departure.

Drawing on in-depth semistructured interviews with experts and on content analysis, and offered as the first thorough study of post-Duvalier decentralization efforts, the paper identifies the institutional obstacles blocking better public services and genuine citizen participation. It also traces how and why officials at the center keep limiting what decentralization might do for local development and subnational governance.