Understanding the Political Motivations That Shape Rwanda's Emergent Developmental State

Abstract

Twenty years after its horrific genocide, Rwanda has become a model for economic development. At the same time, its government has been criticised for authoritarian tactics and the use of violence. Missing from the often polarised debate are the connections between these two perspectives. Synthesising existing literature on Rwanda in light of a combined year of fieldwork, we argue that the Government of Rwanda is using the developmental infrastructure to deepen state power and expand political control. We first identify the historical pressures that have motivated the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) to reimagine the political landscape. Sectarian unrest, political rivalry, wider regional insecurity and aid withdrawal have all pressured the RPF to identify growth as strategic. However, the political transformation extends beyond a prioritisation of growth and encompasses the articulation of ideologies and new mindsets, the provision of social services and infrastructure and the reordering of the social and physical layout of the territory. Growth and social control go hand in hand. As such, this paper's main contribution is to bring together the two sides of the Rwandan debate and place the country in a broader sociological literature about the parallel development of capitalist relations and transformations in state power.

Keywords:

• Rwanda
• Africa
• developmental state
• political economy
• political settlement
• violence
• systemic vulnerability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Laura Mann is currently a sociologist at the African Studies Centre (ASC) in Leiden and beginning September 2015, she will be at the Department of International Development at the London School of Economics. She has published articles in the Journal of Modern African Studies, the Review of African Political Economy, Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers and Critical African Studies. She is currently pursuing research on big data, surveillance and economic governance in Africa.

Marie Berry is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and beginning September 2015, she will be at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. She has published in Mobilization: An International Quarterly, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, The Society Pages and Foreign Policy. She is a political sociologist with a particular interest in the long-term impact of war violence on societies, including on gender, ethnic relations and political institutions.

Notes

1. Notable social scientists include Filip Reyntjens, Timothy Longman, Scott Straus, Johan Pottier and Susan Thomson, among others.

2. Author 1's interviews included economic policy-makers, managers in IT, service, tea and tourism sectors, and informal airtime sellers. Author 2's interviews were exclusively with women from a range of backgrounds, from the rural poor to the national political elite.

3. For a general theory of ‘minimum winning coalitions', see Riker (1962).

4. Throughout the paper, we use the acronym RPF to refer to both the civilian and the military wing of the movement.

5. Author 2, confidential informants, 6/2012.

6. The proportion of aid is declining as the tax base increases. Yet at the same time, the privatisation process is increasing the proportion of aid, as the state budget shrinks.

7. Agaciro Development Fund, https://www.agaciro.org/background. Agaciro means dignity in Kinyarwanda.

8. Author 1 fieldwork notes from pro-entrepreneurship forums for youth.

9. There is an ongoing debate between the APPP and scholars like Gökgür about the extent of RPF ownership in these party-statals.

10. Interviews conducted by author 1 with business people in the IT and service sector also revealed such allegations.

11. Author interviews.

12. Korea Telecom Corporation installed the infrastructure.

13. BSC is a private company in which the government is a majority shareholder.

14. Author 1 field notes.

15. Author 2 field notes.

16. Rwandapedia, Ingando (2014): http://www.rwandapedia.rw/explore/ingando#sthash.Zzu59UMn.dpuf.

17. Authors 1 and 2 field notes.

18. Informal conversations with employees of international organisations and government institutions also suggest a certain amount of ‘information control’ surrounding official statistics, so both positive and negative assessments should be taken with a grain of salt.

19. Author 1 and 2 field notes.