Neither war nor peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): profiting and coping amid violence and disorder

Within, Above, and Beyond: Churches and Religious Civil Society Activism in South Kivu

“…Seay (2009, p. 11) argues that the state can best be described as "'weak' in some areas and 'collapsed' or 'failed' in others", which the Eastern provinces in particular lacking a meaningful state presence. The Weberian notion of statehood, with the monopolisation of violence as its core tenet, has never matched the historical realities of the Democratic Republic of Congo in general, and the Eastern regions devastated by two recent wars in particular (Larmer et al, 2013). This in turn, has implications for how we can conceptualise Congolese associational life.…”

“…Despite the promise of the CNS, it would be misleading to portray a narrative of gradual, bottom-up democratisation. As Larmer et al (2013) remind us, what eventually led to regime change was not the mobilisation of (local) civil society forces, but a political-military mobilisation with support from foreign regimes. Like the mobilisation of civil society, military revolt also started in the Kivu provinces.…”

The limits to community-based conflict resolution in North-East Congo

“…As Autesserre, in her detailed, comprehensive and compelling analysis of the UN's mission in the DRC notes (2010: 95), 'the main reason that the peace-building strategy in Congo has failed is that the international community has paid too little attention to the root causes of violence there: local disputes over land and power'. She, together with a range of other commentators (Kisangani 2006(Kisangani , 2010Engelbert and Tull 2008;Trefon 2011;Larmer et al 2013), has called for greater support to more locally rooted, community-based peacebuilding initiatives.…”

Poverty amid plenty: structural violence and local governance in western Congo

“…The protracted conflict in the Eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has drawn much academic attention. While many contributions have focussed on the dynamics of the conflict itself (Reed 1998;Clark 2001;International Crisis Group 2003;Tull 2003;Beswick 2009;UN 2010), others point to the failure of the liberal peacebuilding model aimed at bringing an end to conflict within the East as well as across the country more broadly (Englebert and Tull 2008;Eriksen 2009; Autesserre 2010;Marriage 2011;Prunier 2011;Trefon 2011;Larmer et al 2013). A considerable number of flaws with the peacebuilding approach employed have been identified.…”

“…These include its elite level focus which, some argue, has strengthened the power of rebels and combatants and increased the vulnerability and insecurity of the population (Engelbert and Tull 2008;Eriksen 2009; Marriage 2011); its Western institutional bias (Engelbert and Tull 2008); its assumption of common rather than competing interests (Marriage 2011); and although, at $8.7 billion, the most expensive UN peacekeeping operation to date, its resource deficiencies (Englebert and Tull 2008;Eriksen 2009;Trefon 2013). Many commentators criticise peacekeepers' failures to address the local drivers and structural causes of conflict (Kisangani 2006(Kisangani , 2010Engelbert and Tull 2008;Autesserre 2010;Trefon 2011;Larmer et al 2013). Kisangani (2010) argues that popular sentiments of social and economic exclusion across the country amplify local grievances while Marriage (2011Marriage ( , 1905 argues that international interventions have increased the insecurity of the population as 'patterns of extraction that were established through violence are perpetuated within a political economy that has received international endorsement'.…”