How Elite Networks Helped Drive Haiti’s 1991 Coup and Post-Coup Price Spikes

🧭 Question & Argument

Existing theories explain coups as elite responses to threats to their economic interests, but often ignore how social ties among elites shape collective action. A formal model is developed where coups generate rents for elites and where an elite’s effort to mount a coup rises with their network centrality. The argument emphasizes that social structure interacts with economic incentives to facilitate antidemocratic mobilization.

🔎 New Network and Firm Records Link Social Power to Economic Stakes

An original dataset of Haitian elite social networks is linked to firm-level data to observe which families controlled import businesses and other commercial assets. The linked data allow tracing both social-centrality and material stakes across elites.

📈 Key Findings

• Central families in the elite network were more likely to be accused of participating in the 1991 coup against the democratically elected Aristide government.
• Retail prices of staple goods imported by those same elites rose relatively more during subsequent periods of nondemocracy, indicating material gains tied to antidemocratic episodes.

⚙️ Model Implications and Mechanism

• The model shows coups produce rents that create incentives for collective action.
• Network centrality increases an individual elite’s marginal effort to participate in a coup, making densely connected elites more effective at organizing antidemocratic action.
• Social ties thus amplify economic motives and help explain why certain elites become active coup participants.

🌍 Why It Matters

These findings indicate that elite social structure is a consequential factor in democratic reversals: understanding who is central in elite networks—and which firms they control—helps explain both the initiation of coups and subsequent distributional effects such as price changes during nondemocratic periods.