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This article analyzes the effects of patronage networks on cohesion in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It shows that while patronage networks provide support to individual military personnel, they undermine both peer and commander–subordinate bonding. They promote unequal service conditions and statuses and link these to extra-unit and extra-military forms of social identification, which are further reinforced by soldiers' living and generating revenue among civilians. Furthermore, they impair meritocracy and frustrate the extent to which commanders live up to their subordinates' expectations. As they fuel internal conflicts, often around revenue generation, and foster bad service conditions and distrust toward the political and military leadership, patronage networks also undermine institutional cohesion. The article concludes that cohesion formation in the FARDC follows different patterns than in well-institutionalized and well-resourced militaries. Given that cohesion impacts combat performance and norm enforcement, these findings are relevant for defense reform efforts and military cooperation.

This article analyzes the effects of patronage networks on cohesion in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It shows that while patronage networks provide support to individual military personnel, they undermine both peer and commander–subordinate bonding. They promote unequal service conditions and statuses and link these to extra-unit and extra-military forms of social identification, which are further reinforced by soldiers' living and generating revenue among civilians. Furthermore, they impair meritocracy and frustrate the extent to which commanders live up to their subordinates' expectations. As they fuel internal conflicts, often around revenue generation, and foster bad service conditions and distrust toward the political and military leadership, patronage networks also undermine institutional cohesion. The article concludes that cohesion formation in the FARDC follows different patterns than in well-institutionalized and well-resourced militaries. Given that cohesion impacts combat performance and norm enforcement, these findings are relevant for defense reform efforts and military cooperation.

The literature on peacekeeping has paid scant attention to the interaction between peacekeeping troops and host country military. Addressing this gap in scholarly knowledge, this paper conceptualizes such interaction as 'diagonal interoperability'. The latter is situated in-between 'horizontal interoperability' on the one hand, relating to interaction between different components of a peacekeeping mission, and 'vertical interoperability' on the other, referring to the relations between international peacekeepers and 'peace-kept' populations. The paper focuses on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where UN forces and the Congolese army are engaged in joint military operations and army reform is part of the peacekeeping mission's mandate. Studying both mutual representations and joint practices, the paper explores the organizational, political, discursive, and security-related factors that shape diagonal interoperability. It concludes that diagonal interoperability between the two forces is weak, as reflected in mutual distrust and 'not-so joint' joint operations. Perhaps surprisingly, it finds that shared military identities do not seem to facilitate collaboration. Rather, mutual perceptions of the 'military Other' are infused with discourses of cultural and political difference, therefore accentuating the power asymmetries that undermine diagonal interoperability.

After more than two decades of ongoing violent conflict, armed groups—however fleeting their existence—have become an integral feature of the eastern Congo's social-political order. They are not a temporary aberration in what is otherwise a normal society. They are at the heart of the way power is exercised and experienced. Moreover, armed groups do not stand apart from either society or the state apparatus. They are deeply embedded in social networks that regroup state and non-state actors and that stretch from the very local to the national and sometimes the sub-regional (Great Lakes area) and international levels. This report analyses the stability, inclusivity and levels of violence of both the political settlement of the Congo as a whole and of political settlements in the conflict-ridden east. It shows that in each of these political arenas, armed groups and violence play a different role, and examines how these arenas mutually influence each other. The relative importance of armed groups as either resources or threats to the power of the presidential patronage network shapes its policies towards the east, such as initiatives for military operations or negotiations. These policies influence the role that armed groups play locally. This role, in turn, shapes to what extent and how national politicians engage with armed groups; for instance, whether they support their mobilization or demobilization.

This Usalama Report analyses militarization in Uvira and how it shapes the interplay between local conflicts, governance and armed mobilization. Focussing on the Bafuliiru Chiefdom and the Ruzizi Plain Chiefdom, the report examines how armed forces influence and are influenced by conflicts related to customary power, security governance and local economic regulation. The presence of so many armed groups in Uvira affects local governance profoundly, in particular because of their links with local authorities. The report argues that in order to sustainably demilitarize Uvira, it is necessary to defuse conflicts related to customary authority, weaken armed groups and their civilian support networks, and improve security management and regulation of local defence forces.

This article analyses the disconcerting phenomenon of 'popular in/justice', or killings of citizens enacted by other citizens 'in the name of justice'. It studies these practices in the Fizi/Uvira region in the conflict-ridden eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, where they target either suspected criminals or presumed sorcerers. The article locates the causes for this phenomenon in certain transformations of socio-political space, notably the unsettling of customary and politico-administrative authority, dysfunctional state-led justice and security services, and the militarisation of local governance. These developments have compounded dispute processing and handling the occult, leading these processes to often turn violent. They also incentivise and enable politically and socio-economically marginalised yet demographically numerous groups to assert socio-political agency and engage in order-making. The article concludes by arguing that popular in/justice should be seen as an expression of such aspirations to exercise efficacious socio-political agency, thereby constituting a perverse form of democratisation.

Contrary to dominant approaches that locate the causes for military entrepreneurialism in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo predominantly in criminal military elites, this article highlights the importance of the Congolese military's (FARDC) civilian context for understanding military revenue-generation. It analyses how the latter is shaped by structures of domination, signification and legitimisation that drive and are driven by the FARDC's governance, private protection and security practices. It argues that these practices contribute to bestowing a degree of legitimacy on both the FARDC's position of power and some of its revenue-generation activities. Furthermore, by emphasising that the FARDC's regulatory and protection practices are partly the product of popular demands and the routine actions of civilians, the article contends that the causes of military revenue-generation are co-located in the military's civilian environment. In this manner, it offers a more nuanced conceptualisation of military entrepreneurialism, thus opening up new perspectives on policy interventions in this area.
[Les affaires militaires et les affaires des militaires dans le Kivu]. Contrairement aux approches dominantes qui trouvent les causes de l'entrepreneuriat des militaires dans l'est de la RDC essentiellement dans les élites militaires criminelles, cet article met en exergue l'importance du contexte civil de l'armée congolaise (FARDC) pour comprendre les pratiques militaires génératrices de revenus. Il analyse comment ces dernières sont influencées par les structures de domination, de signification et de légitimation qui conduisent et sont conduites par les pratiques de gouvernance, de protection privée et de sécurité des FARDC. L'article soutient que ces pratiques contribuent à l'attribution d'un degré de légitimité tant sur la position du pouvoir des FARDC que sur certaines de leurs activités de génération de revenus. En outre, en insistant sur le fait que les pratiques de protection et de régulation des FARDC résultent en partie des demandes populaires et des actions de routine des civils, l'article soutient que les origines des activités de génération de revenus des militaires sont co-localisés dans l'environnement civil des militaires. De cette manière, l'article offre une conceptualisation de l'entreprenariat militaire plus nuancé, ouvrant ainsi de nouvelles perspectives pour les interventions des bailleurs de fonds dans ce domaine.

Mots-clés : Armée congolaise ; Kivu ; militarisation ; économies informelles ; réforme de l'armée

Peering through the lens of illegal charcoal production in the forested areas of Virunga National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, this paper makes a case for disaggregating the notion of "the state" to better capture "the political" in contemporary political forests. It argues that to identify the fluctuating importance of different dimensions of "stateness", it is crucial to acknowledge the polymorphous socio‐spatial relations that produce political forests. Thus, we draw on the notions of territory, place, scale and network (TPSN) to examine how "stateness" in Virunga has transformed under the particularisation, transnationalisation, and regionalisation of authority. This approach allows us to show how these processes do not only stem from neoliberalisation, but are also driven by, inter alia, regional warfare and non‐state militarisation. The resulting complexity of the regulatory landscape turns Virunga into a space marked by a plurality of partly overlapping and partly conflicting political forests.