Real governance beyond the 'failed state': Negotiating education in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Taxation, Stateness and Armed Groups: Public Authority and Resource Extraction in Eastern Congo

“…It continues to resonate with the social imaginaries of public order and is reinvented by state as well as non-state actors (Hoffmann and Vlassenroot, 2014;Titeca and De Herdt, 2011). We suggest that the taxation practices of armed groups in eastern Congo draw on this language of stateness.…”

Everyday Resistance, Peacebuilding and State-making : Insights from 'Africa's World War'

“…These practical ways create their own routines that knit together how public administration, services and norms work (De Herdt and de Sardan 2015;Meagher 2012;Meagher, De Herdt, and Titeca 2014;Raeymaekers 2014). These approaches in the Africanist literature offer an analysis of hybrid institutions and routines that enable regulations and norms by state and non-state actors alike (Laudati 2013;Seay 2013;de Sardan 2012;Leinweber 2012;Titeca and De Herdt 2011). In a different way, this book concentrates on practices that define state-making more generally and where resistance is rooted.…”

“…Their view is that this power, which affects practices of norm-making, tax and labour extraction, bureaucratic administration and the use of force, will vary across states (Migdal and Schlichte 2005: 16 (Migdal and Schlichte 2005: 16 and 31). This focus has also taken scholars to note the multiple forms of governance that have emerged as a result of civil society groups taking over, as well as from the consequences of war (Meagher et al 2014;Titeca and De Herdt 2011); although, as De Herdt and Sardan argue, the implication of civil society in governance and informal arrangements is hardly a new phenomenon (2015: 3). For Achille Mbembe, as will be seen below, what defines African states is their entanglement with time, processes and dynamics that make them assert their authority by means of coercion and extraction under claims of legitimacy through private and informal channels.…”

“…Something that the resource wars thesis does not point out is that, as Johnson and Kayser note, informal exchanges and trafficking are part of a longer trend of bypassing state regulations, of confronting poverty and of building local influence (2005: 169). Many have noted that merchant elites who are part of larger networks succeed in providing the community with much-needed resources outside of state channels (Kabamba 2011;Mac Gaffey and BazenguissaGanga 2000;Raeymaekers et al 2008;Titeca and De Herdt 2011;Tull 2003). These practices may have fuelled the continuation of war and may not have fostered industry.…”

Comparative leadership: pathways, scope and values in DRC-English 'urban' schools

“…Those ambitions would later be knocked down and bruised by continuous violence and poverty. The state's increasing inability to provide for public services, including 21 education, puts it under the category of failed state (Titeca & De Herdt, 2011) or conflict state, which, anecdotally here but essential to mention for the rest of the research, makes it difficult to get up-to-date and accurate data (Montjourides, 2013).…”