What's on a peasant's mind? Experiencing RPF state reach and overreach in post-genocide Rwanda (2000–10)

Abstract

This article attempts – for the Rwandan case – to answer a fundamental question of state-builders in Africa: to what extent and how is authority broadcast over people? There is much controversy concerning the nature of governance by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in contemporary Rwanda. This article moves beyond existing knowledge on local government structures and practice by analysing over 350 life histories of rural Rwandans collected in 2011. It will be explained that these data provide an insight into the ‘subjective realm’ of governance experience and function as a social commentary on the nature of governance during the era of RPF regime consolidation: 2000–10. An immediate observation – based on a simple word frequency count executed on the total sample of life stories – is the high presence of ‘authority’ in the lives of Rwandans. This insight points towards a significant degree of state reach under the RPF in Rwanda, contrary to what is often observed in Africa. In addition, the findings identify an overall perceived improvement in basic service delivery but also reveal the often authoritarian nature and, at times, overreach of underlying governance practice. The observed state–society relations are qualified by examining a number of life story narratives. The article concludes with reflections on the methodological, theoretical and policy implications of the observed dialectic of state reach and overreach discernible in the lives of peasants in contemporary Rwanda. It calls for a reconsideration of ‘state fragility’ both in the Rwandan case and globally.

Keywords:

• Rwanda
• Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)
• governance
• state-building
• state fragility
• structural violence
• service delivery
• authority
• peasantry
• life histories

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Phil Clark, Jason Mosley and two anonymous reviewers for insightful comments. The usual disclaimer applies.

Funding

Fieldwork was supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and the Flemish Interuniversity Council – University Development Cooperation (VLIR-UOS).

Notes

1. For example, see Reyntjens, “Rwanda: Ten Years On”; Reyntjens, “Constructing the Truth”; Booth and Golooba-Mutebi, “Developmental Patrimonialism”; Golooba-Mutebi and Booth, Bilateral Cooperation and Local Power Dynamics.

2. Morse, “Principles of Mixed Methods,” p. 190, defines a ‘theoretical drive’ as ‘the overall direction of the project as determined from the original questions or purpose and is primarily inductive or deductive’. When the theoretical drive is inductive, the research is discovering answers to initial questions and exploring the concepts that underlie the research topic. In contrast, working deductively is more suited to testing a hypothesis.

3. Herbst, States and Power in Africa.

4. The insights presented in this paper are informed by over 35 months of fieldwork in rural Rwanda from 2004. Names of individuals and places have been altered to ensure confidentiality. The research process is extensively documented in Ingelaere, Learning ‘To Be’ Kinyarwanda.

5. Purdekova, “‘Even If I Am Not Here’”; Ingelaere, “Peasants, Power and Ethnicity”; Ingelaere, “Ruler's Drum”; Sommers, Stuck, pp. 73–94.

6. Republic of Rwanda, National Decentralization Policy.

7. Republic of Rwanda, Report on the Reflection Meetings.

8. The reform reduced the number of provinces (from 11 to 4), districts (from 106 to 30), sectors (from 1545 to 416), and cells (cellules) (down from 9201); Republic of Rwanda, National Decentralization Policy. Boundaries and names of these administrative entities often changed as well as the roles of these administrative entities; provinces lost their autonomy (and are due to be abolished).

9. Republic of Rwanda, Genocide Ideology, p. 2

10. Ingelaere, “Ruler's Drum,” pp. 71–3.

11. Golooba-Mutebi and Booth, Bilateral Cooperation and Local Power Dynamics, pp. 14–15.

12. Republic of Rwanda, Making Decentralized Service Delivery, p. 9.

13. Organization for Social Science Research in Eastern and Southern Africa (OSSREA), Rapid and Extensive Assessment, pp. 17–19.

14. Jackson, Politics of Storytelling, p. 15.

15. The analyses emphasizing the reactive nature of agency as resistance to power often make use of Scott's analytical apparatus of public and hidden transcripts; Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance. I do not follow Scott to the extent that all these private conversations and behaviours are automatically reactive to a situation of dominance and need to be qualified as resistance. I only consider behaviour resistance when there is a clear consciousness of resisting or a collective effort to resist. For example, in my research on the genocide and the functioning of the gacaca practice, I have always stressed the importance of localized dynamics that are aligned with but nevertheless differ from centralized dynamics. For example, see Ingelaere, “Changing Lenses”; Ingelaere, “Gacaca Courts,” pp. 53–4; and Ingelaere, “Mille Collines, Mille Gacacas.”

16. The New Times, “Imihigo.”

17. Purdekova “‘Even If I Am Not Here,’” pp. 482–7.

18. Life story interview, March 12, 2011, Marangara, South-East Rwanda, female, Hutu, accused in gacaca, peasant, married, six children, born in 1954.

19. Purdekova “‘Even If I Am Not Here,’” p. 483.

20. Vansina also uses this expression in his discussion of the centralization of power of the Nyinginya kingdom in the 18th and 19th centuries; Vansina, Antecedents to Modern Rwanda, p. 95.

21. This approach was adopted in a systematic way from 2007. It is based on an analysis of the overall research environment, and the need to overcome obstacles such as self-censorship, widespread secrecy and constraint in public ; Ingelaere, “Do We Understand Life?” The choice to resort to systematic life story interviewing in 2007 was the result of insights into strengths and weaknesses of research techniques used in the period 2004–06. The research process was divided into several phases of which some were more open-ended and exploratory. An extensive discussion and documentation of the research process can be found in Ingelaere, Learning ‘To Be’ Kinyarwanda.

22. Ingelaere, “Living the Transition”; Ingelaere, “Peasants, Power and Ethnicity”; Ingelaere, Learning ‘To Be’ Kinyarwanda. The objective of the 2011 wave was to replicate the same methodology and revisit the same individuals and ‘update’ their life stories for the period 2000–11. Details on fieldwork and method can be consulted in the publications mentioned above. It is sufficient to highlight the main features: locations were selected based on the principle of maximizing variance (regionally, historical bases of power, agro-climatic zones, etc.); respondents were selected through a stratified random sampling scheme; a semi-structured interview guide was used; and the sample only contains individuals aged 18 years or older during the 1994 genocide.

23. Plummer, Documents of Life, p. 20.

24. Hyden, Ujaama in Tanzania.

25. Meessen et al., “Reviewing Institutions”; Rusa et al., “Rwanda: Performance-Based Financing”; Chambers and Golooba-Mutebi, Is the Bride Too Beautiful?

26. Life story interview, March 15, 2011, Marangara, South-East Rwanda, male, Tutsi, genocide survivor, seven children, born 1952.

27. Life story interview, March 31, 2011, Mugwato, Southern Rwanda, male, Hutu, not accused in gacaca, peasant, married, three children, born in 1940.

28. Life story interview, March, 2011, Rukoma, Eastern Rwanda, male, Hutu, not accused in gacaca, peasant, married, four children, born in 1943.

29. Life story interview, April 19, 2011, Nyakabanda, Northern Rwanda, male, Hutu, not accused in gacaca, married, two children, born in 1961.

30. Also Ingelaere, “Ruler's Drum,” p. 74.

31. Life story interview, March 6, 2011, Ntabona, Central Rwanda, male, Hutu, accused in gacaca, peasant, married, three children, born in 1971.

32. Life story interview, February 28, 2011, Runyoni, female, Hutu, not accused in gacaca, peasant, married, six children, born in 1971.

33. Life story interview, April 3, 2011, Marangara, South-East Rwanda, Tutsi, old-caseload returnee, peasant, married, three children, born in 1969.

34. Life story interview, February 25, 2011, Runyoni, Central Rwanda, male, Hutu, not accused in gacaca, peasant, married, three children, born in 1964.

35. Gacaca proceedings ended well before the ‘official’ closure in June 2012 in many places.

36. For a recent analysis of the relationship between crimes committed by the RPF and the gacaca proceedings, see Ingelaere, “Gacaca Courts”; Ingelaere, “Hidden Death”; and Stefanowicz, “Gacaca Highlights Failure,” an interview with Phil Clark.

37. Life story interview, March 21, 2011, Rukoma, Eastern Rwanda, female, Hutu, no prison, not accused in gacaca, peasant, married, five children, born in 1964.

38. Life story interview, May 20, 2011, Jali, Northern Rwanda, male, Hutu, accused in gacaca, peasant, married, four children, born in 1975.

39. For example, a senate report on genocide ideology provides examples that can be considered as ‘dangerous’ claims, acts or ideas given Rwanda's history such as ‘the Tutsi are naturally cunning, evil’ or ‘skilful Tutsi lobbying in lying, giving false information and infiltrating the media, international organizations’; Republic of Rwanda, Genocide Ideology, p. 17. But the report (ibid.) also enumerates claims considered to be genocide ideology although these seem to be politically motivated, such as ‘unpunished RPF crimes’ or accusations of a ‘totalitarian regime muzzling the opposition, the press, freedom of association and of speech’, as well as ‘accusation of divisionism against political opponents and civil society associations’ or the evoking of the ‘guilty conscience of the international community that does not condemn sufficiently the post-genocide regime’. The link between the latter assertions and the intent to commit genocide (against Tutsi) is opaque, even inexistent.

40. How this preoccupation with genocide ideology, in its broad definition, gains force and momentum throughout Rwandan society has been documented; e.g. Ingelaere, “‘Does the Truth,’” pp. 521–3; Ingelaere, “Do We Understand Life?,” pp. 52–4; Ingelaere, “From Model to Practice,” pp. 393–5; Ingelaere, “Hidden Death,” pp. 220–5.

41. Foucault, Power/Knowledge.

42. Life story interview, round 2, March 5, 2011, Rambura, Southern Rwanda, male, Tutsi, genocide survivor, peasant, married, four children, born in 1956.

43. Life story interview, round 2, March 21, 2011, Rukoma, Eastern Rwanda, male, Hutu, liberated prisoner, accused in gacaca, peasant, married, seven children, born in 1935.

44. Life story interview, round 2, February 25, 2011, Runyoni, Central Rwanda, female, Tutsi, genocide survivor, widow, two children, born in 1963.

45. Imvaho Nshya, 2–5 November 2010; La Nouvelle Relève, December 6–9, 2010.

46. The New Times, “Clergyman Arrested.”

47. Republic of Rwanda, Transmission for the Terms of Reference.

48. The New Times, “Local Leaders Resign”; The New Times, “Five Local Leaders Suspended.”

49. Republic of Rwanda, Evolution of Poverty.

50. Abbott and Rwirahira, Against the Odds.

51. This disparity has been documented elsewhere as well; e.g. Legatum Institute, Legatum Prosperity Index, p. 56; Helliwell et al., World Happiness Report 2013, p. 23; Verpoorten, “Growth, Poverty and Inequality.”

52. For example, Putzel and Di John, Meeting the Challenges.

53. For example, Putzel and Di John, Meeting the Challenges, pp. 7–8.

54. Herbst, States and Power in Africa, p. 155.

55. Uvin, Aiding Violence.

56. Straus, Order of Genocide; Des Forges, Leave None to Tell; Verwimp, Peasants in Power.

57. Olivier de Sardan and Bierschenk, “Local Powers.”

58. Herbst, States and Power in Africa, pp. 155, 161, refers in particular to Togo, Lesotho, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Burundi, Swaziland and Gambia, and lists a number of other countries with favourable political geographies.

59. A comparison with Burundi seems obvious on the African continent.

Additional information

Funding

Funding: Fieldwork was supported by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and the Flemish Interuniversity Council – University Development Cooperation (VLIR-UOS).