Keywords — actors, perceptions, institutions, domestic constraints

Contribution — A theoretical foundation for avoiding treating the state as a homogeneous actor, studying instead leaders, perceptions, institutions and domestic constraints.

Central thesis — Foreign policy cannot be explained by state-level variables alone: it must be traced back to decision-makers themselves, their perceptions, and the institutions that filter their choices.

Keywords — actors, instruments, transformation of foreign policy

Contribution — A reference on the changing actors and instruments of contemporary foreign policy.

Central thesis — Globalization and domestic political change have blurred the line between foreign and domestic policy, transforming both the actors and the methods of foreign policy.

Keywords — domestic politics, international environment, decision-making

Contribution — Links domestic politics, the international environment and foreign-policy decisions.

Central thesis — Understanding a foreign-policy decision requires simultaneously accounting for domestic politics, actors' ideas and identities, and the structural constraints of the international system.

Keywords — theoretical framework, case comparison, method

Contribution — A guide for building a theoretical framework, comparing cases and operationalizing research.

Central thesis — Rigorously analyzing a foreign policy requires an explicit theoretical framework and systematic case comparison, rather than a mere narrative description of events.

Keywords — IR theories, contemporary debates, disciplinary overview

Contribution — Places foreign-policy approaches within the broader debates of international relations.

Central thesis — International relations are best understood as a plurality of competing yet complementary theoretical traditions, none of which alone accounts for the discipline's core debates.

Keywords — decision units, leaders, unstable systems

Contribution — Analyzes who actually decides in foreign policy, particularly in institutionally unstable systems.

Central thesis — The type of decision unit that holds ultimate authority over a foreign-policy choice — a single leader, a single group, or multiple autonomous actors — systematically shapes how the decision unfolds and its outcome.

Keywords — collapse, authority, restoration

Contribution — A classic work on the disintegration of political authority and its consequences.

Central thesis — State collapse corresponds to the total disappearance of legitimate authority, not merely its weakening — which radically changes what reconstruction requires.

Keywords — power networks, political economy, armed actors

Contribution — Understanding how power networks, political economies and armed actors reshape state capacity.

Central thesis — Some African leaders deliberately weaken formal state institutions because informal, personalized power networks are more profitable and easier for them to maintain.

Keywords — security, development, fragility, international policy

Contribution — A reference for linking security, development, fragility and international policy.

Central thesis — Security and development policies toward fragile states fail when pursued separately, rather than as an integrated response to the same institutional shortcomings.

Keywords — fragility, international public action

Contribution — A short but useful reading on bridging concepts of fragility and international public action.

Central thesis — The label "fragile state" used by policymakers rarely matches the definitions used in the academic literature, creating a persistent gap between theory and policy.

Keywords — violence, civil war, critique of simplistic explanations

Contribution — A critical reading against simplistic explanations of violence and state collapse.

Central thesis — Civil wars in developing countries are rational, organized political acts, not irrational outbursts of ancestral hatred or mere greed.

Keywords — state-building, international intervention, critique

Contribution — An important critique of international state-building policies.

Central thesis — International state-building interventions present themselves as fostering local ownership, while in fact reproducing external control — a contradiction interveners refuse to admit.

Keywords — Haitian-American relations, recognition

Contribution — A major historical work on Haitian-American relations and the stakes of recognition.

Central thesis — The recognition and diplomatic treatment of Haiti by the United States were durably shaped by racial prejudice, well beyond ordinary diplomatic or strategic considerations.

Keywords — great-power rivalries, American occupation

Contribution — An essential reference on great-power rivalries and the conditions of the American occupation.

Central thesis — Haiti's internal instability during this period served as a pretext for the great powers to justify growing intervention, culminating in the American occupation of 1915.

Keywords — history, culture, Black diaspora

Contribution — To be complemented with her articles on Haitian international relations and the Black diaspora.

Central thesis — Haiti's international position cannot be understood through politics alone: its culture and diaspora have been active forces in defining its place in the world.

Keywords — historical synthesis, entry point

Contribution — An accessible historical synthesis, useful as a starting point but to be complemented with specialized work.

Central thesis — Haiti's decline, from a prosperous colony to one of the poorest states in the hemisphere, results from a precise accumulation of internal and external historical choices, not from fate.

Keywords — state structures, social relations, state capacity

Contribution — A foundational work for understanding state structures, social relations and the historical limits of state capacity.

Central thesis — The Haitian state historically formed as an apparatus distinct from, and often opposed to, the interests of the nation it governs.

Keywords — economic dependence, class, race, longue durée

Contribution — Important for situating external dependencies over the long term.

Central thesis — Haiti's underdevelopment results from its structural position of dependence in the world economy, shaped from the outset by relations of race and class, not solely from internal failures.

Keywords — revolution, sovereignty, debt, interference

Contribution — Very useful for connecting revolution, sovereignty, debt, foreign interference and contemporary international trajectory.

Central thesis — Haiti's current crises directly extend the punitive international response to its revolution — indemnities, isolation, interventions — rather than constituting a recent, separate phenomenon.

Keywords — economy, society, institutional weakness

Contribution — Worth consulting for the economic and social dimensions of institutional weakness.

Central thesis — Haitian rural poverty stems from structural constraints specific to its peasant land-based economy, not from a simple general lack of resources.