https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5458-867X
![Sample our Global Development journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5929/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Global-Development.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The article explores how stabilisation missions reproduce the patterns that constituted colonial states. Following African historiography, the article argues that stabilisation’s militarised approach to neutralising resistance, its racialisation of targets and its aim to constitute and reform state authority evoke how colonial states were forged by the inseparable relationship between authority, force, race, production and resistance. However, it will be shown that those patterns cannot be fully understood without an account of the broader structure of coloniality and imperialism. In so doing, the article aims to contribute to bring together different literatures on contemporary peace-building interventions and contemporary militarism by examining the relation between militarism, coloniality and imperialism. It focuses on the Democratic Republic of Congo to show how an intensified use of force against resistance, added to frames that see Congolese politics as deviant, has guided the goal of restoration of state authority, and with it, different economic reforms, all of which have reinforced the military and economic power of national and international elites, without reporting significant benefits to the population at large.
Acknowledgements
Part of the research for this article received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 660933 – PARADOXGREATLAKES. I am also indebted to Zubairu Wai for his continuous encouragement, support and feedback in the process of writing this article. I would also like to thank the external reviewers, but most specially the editors, Linnéa and Adam, for their patience and the numerous times they have read and commented on different versions of this article. Mistakes remain entirely my own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Gorur, ‘Defining the Boundaries of UN Stabilization Missions’, 5; Karlsrud, ‘The UN at War’, 42.
2. Von Billerbeck and Tansey, ‘Enabling Autocracy?’; Vogel and Stearns, ‘Kivu’s Intractable Security Conundrum’; Verweijen, The Ambiguity of Militarization; Verweijen and Wakenga, ‘Understanding Armed Group Proliferation in the Eastern Congo’.
3. This article conceives of stabilisation as a new generation of peacekeeping missions, and of peacekeeping as the overall history of UN peace operations.
4. Sloan, The Militarization of Peacekeeping; Tardy, ‘A Critique of Robust Peacekeeping’; Tull, ‘The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement’.
5. Basham, ‘Liberal Militarism as Insecurity’; Cunliffe, ‘Still the Spectre at the Feast’; Pugh, ‘Lineages of Aggressive Peace’; Wai, ‘The Empire’s New Clothes’.
6. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject; Weiss, Political Protest in DRC; Mkandawire, ‘Neopatrimonialism and the Political Economy of Economic Performance’; Mbembe, On the Postcolony. See also: Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth; Mama, ‘Sheroes and Villains’.
7. Chandler, Empire in Denial; Duffield, Development, Security and Unending War; Jabri, ‘Peacebuilding, the Local and the International’; Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace.
8. Sabaratnam, ‘Decolonising Intervention’.
9. Ibid., 6.
10. Wai, ‘The Empire’s New Clothes’, Epistemologies of African Conflicts; Charbonneau, France and the New Imperialism.
11. Abrahamsen, ‘Return of the Generals?’; Fisher and Anderson, ‘Authoritarianism and the Securitization of Development in Africa’.
12. Stavrianakis, ‘Controlling Weapons Circulation’; Basham, ‘Liberal Militarism as Insecurity’; Parashar, ‘Discursive (in)Securities and Postcolonial Anxiety’; Eriksson-Baaz and Verweijen, ‘Confronting the Colonial’.
13. Gorur, ‘Defining the Boundaries of UN Stabilization Missions’, 9–10.
14. Ibid.; Bachmann, ‘Policing Africa’, 120.
15. Brahimi, Report of the Panel.
16. Rhoads, Taking Sides in Peacekeeping.
17. ‘Improving Security of United Nations Peacekeepers: We Need to Change the Way We Are Doing Business’, 2017.
18. Ibid., 11–17.
19. Chandler, Peacebuilding; Karlsrud, ‘Towards UN Counter-Terrorism Operations?’.
20. Cunliffe, ‘Still the Spectre at the Feast’; Pugh, ‘Lineages of Aggressive Peace’; Wai, ‘The Empire’s New Clothes’; Sloan, The Militarization of Peacekeeping; Tardy, ‘A Critique of Robust Peacekeeping’; Tull, ‘The Limits and Unintended Consequences of UN Peace Enforcement’; Karlsrud, ‘The UN at War’.
21. El-Bushra and Sahl, ‘Cycles of Violence’; Sjoberg and Via, Gender, War and Militarism; Wilmer, Women, the State and War.
22. Campbell et al., ‘Introduction’, 2.
23. Basham, ‘Liberal Militarism as Insecurity’, 33.
24. Ibid.
25. Cf. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa.
26. UN DPKO calculations in Iñiguez de Heredia, ‘Peace and Security Interventions in Africa’, 5.
27. Sloan, The Militarization of Peacekeeping.
28. Stavrianakis and Selby, ‘Militarism and International Relations’, n/p.n.
29. Howell, ‘Forget Militarisation’.
30. Thee, ‘Militarism and Militarization’, 296; Verweijen, The Ambiguity of Militarization, 46.
31. Shaw, ‘Twenty-First Century Militarism’; Stavrianakis and Selby, ‘Militarism and International Relations’.
32. Lewis et al., ‘Illiberal Peace? ’, 489 and 491.
33. UN Security Council, The Penholder System. At present, P-3 countries play this role in 15 out of 17 ‘country situations’ in Africa, including the seven UN operations currently deployed in the continent.
34. De Coning, ‘Peace-Enforcement in Africa’.
35. Abrahamsen, ‘Return of the Generals?’.
36. Iñiguez de Heredia, ‘EU’s Peacebuilding’.
37. Aoi et al., ‘Introduction’, 5.
38. Lemarchand, ‘Genocide in the Great Lakes’, 168.
39. Aoi et al., ‘Introduction’, 6.
40. Wai, ‘Africa in/and International Relations’; Sabaratnam, Decolonising Intervention.
41. Bachmann, ‘Policing Africa’, 122–123.
42. Parashar, ‘Discursive (in)Securities and Postcolonial Anxiety’.
43. Eriksson-Baaz and Verweijen, ‘Confronting the Colonial’, 58.
44. Dike, African Historiography.
45. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject. Other authors leave some elements under-theorised (e.g. resistance in Mbembe and Young; race, authority and production in Mkandawire).
46. Ibid., 23.
47. Meeuwis, ‘The Origins of Belgian Colonial Language Policies’, 191.
48. Hoshchild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 123.
49. Turner, The Congo Wars.
50. Calculations of the number of deaths range ‘between one-third or one-half’ in Iliffe, Africans, 217–218; and 10 million in Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, 280.
51. Wai, ‘On the Banality of Violence’, 128.
52. Awe, ‘Militarism and Economic Development’; Mama, ‘Khaki in the Family’; Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Coloniality of Power; Mbembe, ‘Pouvoir, Violence et Accummulation’.
53. Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 3.
54. Ibid., 196; See also Mkandawire, ‘The Terrible Toll of Postcolonial Rebel Movements’.
55. Ibid., 105–107; Mamdani, Citizen and Subject, 189.
56. Cf. Bachmann, ‘Policing Africa’.
57. Ballestrin, ‘Modernidade/Colonialidade sem “Imperialidade”?’, 506 and 525.
58. Steinmetz, ‘Imperialism’, para. 10. Thanks also to Adam Sandor for highlighting this point.
59. Quijano, ‘Coloniality of Power’, 533–534.
60. Sabaratnam, Decolonising Statebuilding.
61. Grosfoguel, ‘Decolonizing Post-Colonial Studies’.
62. Fanon, ‘Racisme et Culture’, 46.
63. Inayatullah and Riley, ‘Introduction’.
64. Charbonneau, France and the New Imperialism, 172; Wai, ‘The Empire’s New Clothes’, 3 and 11.
65. Ibid., 5, 12 and 13.
66. Ibid., 10.
67. Ibid., 3 and 11.
68. Charbonneau, France and the New Imperialism, 112.
69. Ibid., 172 and 172.
70. Fanon, Wretched of the Earth, 40.
71. Interview with Daniel Ruiz, Head of MONUSCO-Goma, Barcelona, 8 October 2018.
72. Autesserre, The Trouble with the Congo, chap. 5.
73. Verweijen, ‘Strange Battlefield Fellows’, 371.
74. MONUSCO, ISSSS, 8.
75. Ibid., 5–6.
76. ISSSS officer cited in Iñiguez de Heredia, ‘Re-engaging History and Global Politics’, 69.
77. MONUSCO, ISSSS, 5.
78. Ibid., 2.
79. Wai, Africa in/and International Relations, 36.
80. Iñiguez de Heredia, ‘Re-engaging History and Global Politics’, 68–72.
81. Titeca and Thamani, ‘DRC Elections’.
82. Kets and de Vries, ‘Limits to Supporting Security Sector Interventions in the DRC’, 8.
83. Mainly, the Forces Democratiques pour la Liberation de Rwanda (FDLR), who formed from ex-government and army members of Rwanda that escaped to Zaire at the time of the Rwandan Genocide; and Mai Mai militias, which are primarily rural youth militias formed from within ethnic and language groups.
84. Human Rights Watch, ‘You will be Punished’; UN Group of experts, S/2010/596, para. 26.
85. CRG, ‘Mass Killings in Beni Territory’, 3.
86. Ibid., 4.
87. Verweijen, The Ambiguity of Militarization, 126.
88. Iñiguez de Heredia, Everyday Resistance, Peacebuilding and State-making.
89. Verweijen, The Ambiguity of Militarization, 183.
90. Ibid., 126.
91. The Presidential Guard reportedly evaded the arms embargo imposed on the country, even if it never acted under any FARDC command. The embargo meant that only troops under FARDC command would be able to import military equipment. Carish, ‘The Elephant in the Room’.
92. Human Rights Watch, ‘DRCongo Repression Persists’; Reuters, ‘Congo Forces Kill 26 Protesters’.
93. See Frowd and Sandor, ‘Militarism and its Limits’, 71.
94. DCAF, ‘Country Case Studies’.
95. Verweijen, The Ambiguity of Militarization, 220.
96. AFRICOM, ‘About’ and ‘Congolse Soldiers Graduate’.
97. Marriage, ‘The Elephant in the Room’, 898; see also van Aker, ‘Where Did All the Land Go’; Raeymaekers, Violent Capitalism.
98. Marriage, ‘The Elephant in the Room’, 898.
99. Iñiguez, Everyday Resistance, Peacebuilding and State-making.
100. Ibid., chap. 4.
101. Meeuwis, ‘The Origins of Belgian Colonial Language Policies’, 191.
102. Nzongola-Ntalaja, The Congo, 13 and 41.
103. Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost, chap.12.
104. Weiss, ‘A History of Resistance in the Congo’.
105. Ibid.
106. Verweijen and Wakenga, ‘Understanding Armed Group Proliferation’, 2–4.
107. Iñiguez de Heredia, Everyday Resistance, Peacebuilding and State-making, 132–139.
108. Ibid., 138–139. See also: Verweijen, ‘From Autochtony to Violence?’.
109. Front Line Defenders, ‘Eastern DRC Rights Group’; RFI, ‘Ambassadeurs de La Conscience d’Amnesty’; Radio Okapi, ‘Rebecca Kavugho de La LUCHA’; The Guardian, ‘American Diplomat Freed in Congo’.
110. Von Billerbeck and Tansy, ‘Enabling Autocracy?’.
111. UNHCR, ‘As DR Congo’s Kasaï Displacement Grows’.
112. Lynch, ‘Congolese Cover Up’.
113. MONUSCO, ‘RDC’.
114. Lynch, ‘Congolese Cover Up’.
115. Tull, ‘The Limits of Enforcement’, 13.
116. Ibid., 15.
117. Sabaratnam, Decolonising Intervention.
118. Z. Wai, unpublished manuscript.
119. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Coloniality of Power, 47.
120. Hameiri, ‘The Crisis of Liberal Peacebuilding’.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Marta Iñiguez de Heredia
Marta Iñiguez de Heredia is a lecturer at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She is the author of Everyday Resistance, Peacebuilding and Stake-Making and co-editor of Recentering Africa in International Relations.