Research for Haiti

Corruption – Daniel Kaufman and Mushtaq Khan Interviewed by Owen Barder on “Development Drums”

You can read the transcript or listen to the pod cast of Development Drums’ Episode 20: Corruption which features an interesting conversation with Daniel Kaufman and Mushtaq Khan (see also) about corruption in development. This has been a frequent topic in discussions about Haiti recently.

Sadly, discussions of corruption in Haiti often focus—to the neglect of the seriousness and nuance of the topic—just on Haitian officials. This is a real deficiency in the conversation. Any serious conversation about corruption in Haiti needs to include a recognition of the role that forces outside the country have played (e.g., drug smuggling, gun running, past support for paramilitary groups, past support of opposition leaders of questionable democratic credentials, etc.) in corruption and governance problems in the country. The U.S. has come clean recently about the role the U.S. market for narcotics plays in the violence and corruption that is causing havoc in Mexico; discussions of corruption in Haiti need to include similar recognition before there is too much finger pointing.

Discussions of corruption also need to go beyond discussions of bribes and diversions of public funds. Kaufman has an interesting discussion about this here.

For me, though, the most important take home message from the podcast is that corruption should be viewed as a symptom as often as a cause of development problems. This is something I have mentioned to several people about Haiti but the point seems to fall on deaf ears, so it is nice to see it mentioned in the podcast. In the case of Haiti, it is the lack of governance capacity as much as and likely more so than corruption per se that is the barrier to development in Haiti. 

Data: Statistical Profiles of Haitians and Haitian-Americans in the US

The Census Bureau has a statistical profile on Haitians and Haitian-Americans living in the US. The data come from the American Community Survey which includes questions about ethnicity and nativity of respondents. The ACS essentially, asks the questions that are on the "long form" of the decennial Census; however, it surveys a small sample of people each year so that estimates on can be generated on a rolling basis instead of just every ten years. The ACS, which began just a few years ago, is a big boon to data users. Sample questionnaire here.

Some observations from or about this profile:

•  About 785,000 people identified as Haitian or Haitian-American. NOTE: This is very likely an undercount as the surveys were from 2006 to 2008 and many people may not respond to questions about ancestry. Also, children of parents of differing ethnicities may only select one or the other.
  
• Of the 785,000, 306,000 were born in the US, and  479,000 were born outside the US.  
  
• Of these 479,000 born outside the US, 222,000 are US citizens (i.e., have naturalized), and 257,000 are non US citizens.
    
• About 18 percent report that they speak only English at home and 38 percent speak English "less than well" (note: this is self reported, so caveat lector).

While the Haitian population is younger than the population as a whole (median age 29 compared to 38 for the entire nation), 70 percent are 18 years old or older. Roughly then, there are over 500,000 citizens of Haitian descent of which 350,000 are of voting age. Even if highly concentrated geographically, this is a substantial number for organizing to influence US policy towards Haiti, Haitian immigrants, and Haitian-American interests.

UPDATE (Feb. 8, 2010):  I also checked another Census survey, the Current Population Survey (Nov. 2008), to see how many people said they were either born in Haiti or one parent or both were born in Haiti. Again, this data is self-reported and obviously misses some people. The numbers, however, are higher than the ACS sited above. Here's a quick snapshop (rounded):

• Native US citizen born in the US with one or more parents born in Haiti:  377,500
• Native US citizen born overseas with one or more parents born in Haiti:  9,800
• Naturalized US Citizen born in Haiti or with one or more parents born in Haiti:  254,700
• Non-US Citizen born in Haiti or with one or more parents born in Haiti: 243,500
• Total:  885,400

Analysis: Reports on Haiti by the Congressional Research Service

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a service of the Library of Congress that generates a variety of documents for Members of Congress. Usually, the documents are fairly brief and are produced quickly on topics that are very current (for instance, an analysis of the potential implications of a court ruling or a review of published research on an issue raised by news events or by a proposed bill).

Sadly, documents by CRS are not released to the public or made avaible to the public by CRS directly (this is in contrast with other government agencies the specialize in policy and legal research and analysis). However, if recipients of the reports release the documents to advocacy groups, libraries, and other places, there are several places on the Internet that make CRS reports available. Oddly enough, the State Department itself makes some CRS reports available (so... that means a federal agency that doesn't make its reports available to the public finds them being released by another federal agency...hmmm).

Here are just a few places where you can search for CRS reports on Haiti. I see at least two reports, as of today, that deal with Haiti since the earthquake.

1. Open CRS (a nonprofit).
2. U.S. Department of State CRS collection.
3. University of North Texas has a well organized website.
4. Federation of American Scientists (a nonprofit).