The reconfiguration of political order in Africa

This book analyzes the politics of power and survival in ostensibly stateless societies. Taking insurgency-controlled North Kivu Province in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo as a case study (1998-2003), the book examines where local power and authority are located when formal bureaucratic state institutions are either very weak or presumably non-existent. Based on solid original fieldwork, it analyzes the most important actors operating in North Kivu, notably the rulers of the RCD insurgency movement and social formations such as traditional authorities, civil society groups, churches, local associations and NGOs. The modalities of political rule by the rebels and their interaction with society are at the core of the inquiry in order to analyze the kinds of political order that are being produced on the local level. It is demonstrated that North Kivu’s war-time political order, though extremely destructive, is relatively well-structured to the extent that the rebel rulers dominate the political field and, partly as a result, serve as a point of reference shaping the strategies of groups in society, whether they oppose the new rulers or not. In other words, the relative durability of rebel rule has – by default – ushered in identifiable processes of mutual engagement and accommodation that belie notions of sheer chaos and anarchy in war-torn societies. Moreover, the modes of governance espoused by the rebels bear important similarities to the pre-war Mobutist state as it appeared in Eastern Congo. Although this is not to downplay important reconfigurations, the resilience of time-tested political patterns and the relative lack of institutional innovations should serve as a guard against assuming an overly radical political disjuncture with the past.