Controlling public goods in a ‘weak state’ system: The case of the Congolese city Bukavu and everyday state practice By Randi Solhjell PhD student at the London School of Economics and Political Science Working paper submitted for ECPR General Conference, Sciences Po Bordeaux, September 4-7 2013.

Abstract The extensive literature on African statehood is often addressing indirectly or directly why there is a weak state vis-à-vis a strong ideal Western state, put simplistically. Certainly, there are many nuances as well in-depth analysis to this field, but the tendency of comparing ‘the African state’ to a normative ideal of Western statehood remains. Rather than focusing on what the state lacks, the PhD in progress focuses on the attributes and interpretations of state practice in a country often labeled weak or failed, namely the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Rather than the ‘absence’ of governance, city centers in the DRC is often crowded with public authorities or those striving to become one as well as civil servants. This working paper is an introduction to a case study for my PhD on the provincial capital Bukavu in eastern DRC where there is a density of these figures but where the deliverance of public goods such as roads, water, security and sanitation is severely limited. To understand domestic statehood or the state practice in society, the case study will take a closer look at who are delivering these goods, how and what the ‘beneficiaries’ make of it. Though empirically limited to the city of Bukavu, the study is aimed at contributing further to the field of empirical statehood and the control of public goods in socalled ‘weak states’ in sub-Saharan Africa.

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1.0 Introduction When the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is discussed, whether in news or scholarly articles, there is a tendency of focusing on war economy, lack of working public authority and general chaos and suffering. For many, the DRC represents a typical ‘failed’ or ‘collapsed’ state. However, when visiting places such as Bukavu, the eastern provincial capital in South Kivu, you are not so much struck by the ‘absence’ of public authority but rather the excess and density of people in or striving for these positions. Yet, there is no escaping the fact that there are limitations to what these civil servants, politicians, police and soldiers are able to achieve when it comes to delivering so-called public goods such as health care, education, infrastructure, and general safety and security for its citizens. In places like Bukavu one can see clearly what Trefon (2007, book title) calls “the administrative career in a failed state” concerning the daily bargaining over public services in the urban centers, showing how state agents and citizens are in constant negotiations on deliverance of these precious goods.

The purpose of this working paper is to establish some ideas and a research agenda for studying the negotiations and deliverance of a few selected everyday public goods in the city of Bukavu. This forms a key case study for my overall PhD in discussing the interpretations of domestic statehood in so-called ‘weak states’ in sub-Saharan Africa. To understand domestic statehood in Bukavu, we need to investigate who are conducting the state practices, how and what the ‘beneficiaries’ make of it. Rather than abstract discussions on ‘stateness’ and governance, this paper and eventually PhD will contribute to an understanding of the more banal aspects of statehood. This includes the everyday rubbish collections (sanitation commissioner), the control of the public routes and transportation (traffic), the access to and deliverance of water (water and sewerage authorities), and the owners of security companies to deliver security for shop owners, internationals and alike that can afford this (security provision). These aspects are usually not found in the interest perhaps of researchers studying African politics in conflict zones, but they make up an everyday concern regarding empirical statehood for citizens in Bukavu. This in itself is an important motivation for studying less abstract forms of order, control and authorities. Though the examples are empirically limited to Bukavu, the aim is that the final result in the PhD

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will draw further analytical conclusions and suggest a research agenda for future studies in empirical statehood and the control of public goods.

The paper is structured as followed. First, there will be a brief discussion on what is meant by some of the key terms used in this paper, namely weak states, empirical statehood and public goods. Next, there is a mapping of key services of interest. Finally, there will be a discussion on how these public-private arrangements challenges some of the normative interpretations and perceptions of statehood.

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2.0 Weak states, statehood and public goods Before starting the discussion on the topic of controlling public goods in Bukavu, some of the terms used in this article will be discussed, especially what is meant by “weak states”, statehood and public goods. The sub-Saharan «African state» has been classified in many categories. To name a few; weak (Rotchild 1987), quasi (R.H. Jackson, 1993), failed (Rotberg 2003), fictious (Sandbrook), lame Leviathan (T. Callaghy, 1987) to even vampire (Frimpong-Ansah, 1991) and in hybrid political order terms (Boege & al., 2008). There is to some extent a tendency of both contemporary scholars and policy makers to take certain ideas for granted, including concepts such as a “weak state” without considering why such labels are attributed to African states in the first place. Such concepts and ideas “are developed in the interplay between the two domains of academia and policy making, but they derive their credibility from their basis of the former” to borrow the words of Bøås and McNeill (2003, p. 3). In this paper, I have chosen to use the term weak state as it is often applied to sub-Saharan African states. What characterizes some of the literature on the “weak state” is that the state is seen as somehow unsuccessful compared to Western ideals of state and statehood. Certainly, there is evidence of weakness in some of these states’ ability to perform together with (e.g. taxation) and for (e.g. public goods) its citizens. However, an interesting aspect of the “African state”1 and its periods of build-up, de-building and survival is that it continues to exist and not be necessarily transformed in significant ways. The essential feature of so-called weak states as defined through the Western liberal lenses is not necessarily the absence of governance and people left to self-governing. It is more often a term to describe an absence of both a legal-rational bureaucracy and the distinction between the public and private spheres. The terms neopatrimonialism and clientilism are often used in this context to explain the type of informal practices such as patronage systems as well as the plethora of actors filling the various position of income-generating state functions, which all forms state practice in the given country (see e.g.Bach, 2012).

Moreover, the issue of weakness is often subscribed to the African statehood literature regarding the elements of effectiveness and performing basic state tasks like e.g. controlling the use of force, taxation for public revenues and provision of basic public goods (e.g. primary education, 1

Arguably, there is no such thing as the “African state”. Here, it is used as a simplified term for the extensive literature on African statehood in political science and beyond.

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health care, and infrastructure). One can make a crude division in the literature on African state weakness between those who emphasis the fixed borders (see e.g. Atzili, 2006; Pierre Englebert, Tarango, & Carter, 2002; J. Herbst, 1989; Robert H. Jackson & Rosberg, 1986) and scholars who discuss the geography (J. I. Herbst, 2000; Moore et al., 2002; Sachs, 2000).2 Moreover, the topic of national identity or the lack thereof (e.g. Coquery-Vidrovitch, 2003; Davidson, 1992), diverse ethnicity (e.g. Posner, 2004), class and the absence of a true bourgeoisie (Diamond, 1987), alien institutions and characteristics of governance systems (e.g. Bratton, 2007; Sardan, 1999) in the African context are also widely debated within the literature on conflict and state weakness. In other words, there is no lack of theoretical explanations to why the African state is weak in its stateness. The challenge, however, is to find good analytical tools to grasp the complex and often innovative forms of state practice in these so-called weak states.

Statehood is another key term in this regard. Statehood should be understood in relative terms, as (Clapham, 1998) has argued, meaning the varying degrees to which the state has achieved levels international statehood as well in the sense of domestic order, welfare and representation for their citizens (Tull, 2005, p. 40). Statehood is thus a relatively limited concept, but widely used in discussion on the “African state” as most of the countries have achieved fairly poor and hence termed “failed”, “collapsed”, “quasi” etc. states in some of the literature. ‘Empirical statehood’ or domestic statehood is the focus in this paper which is here understood as the domestic practice of being a state, the de facto rather than de jure attributes of statehood (Robert H. Jackson & Rosberg, 1982, p. 2). The empirical statehood is often interpreted by the state’s ability to successfully claim monopoly of force over their territorial jurisdiction. However, the monopoly of legitimate use of force is a relatively limited understanding of the state’s means and, as Jackson and Rosberg (ibid) argued three decades ago, defines many of the sub-Saharan African countries as «non-states» at some point in time. Moreover, statehood is also relative in the sense that there are competing social and

political actors beyond the state apparatus (Tull, p. 30). The state is only one of many players in a society and there are variations to which degree the state is able to enforce its rules over other, competing organizations or actors and their set of rules. Western states have to a higher degree than many African states been able to enforce rules and control over its people in contemporary history. Furthermore, any understanding of statehood should also be defined by the state’s 2

The division is exaggerated as authors like J. Herbst, Jackson and Rosberg all have analyzed numerous reasons and factors for the persistence of Africa’s weak states.

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cooperation and integration with various levels of societies. The state is defined separately from private entities (the home, the Church etc.) but it is still defined by its subjects – the citizens of the state – and how well or how distant its relations are with the society. Much more than a distributor of welfare and security, high levels of empirical statehood, I would argue, is about the reciprocity and trust between the state and the society (see also Migdal, 2001). In the African contexts, as indeed elsewhere, some of the states can be primarily concerned with survival at the expense of their own people. I would term this a low degree of empirical statehood. ‘Public goods’ is a term used in this paper to describe some of the key tasks often associated with more ‘well-functioning states’ such as national health and education systems. As these are large and often well-studied institutions, I have chosen to focus on some of the smaller, but also highly relevant forms of public goods. This includes the free flow and movement of pedestrians and carowners on the road, sanitation aspects such as clean water and garbage control, as well as police and security arrangements such as security companies. The next section will discuss some of these aspects in the empirical case study of Bukavu.

3.0 Controlling public goods in Bukavu; a research agenda In this section, there will first be a brief discussion on Bukavu to locate the site and the type of political order that exist. This is not an exhaustive description but rather meant as an introduction to the case study. Furthermore, there will be a discussion regarding the public goods of interest and the way forward to study this in Bukavu. In the upcoming fieldwork in September-October 2013 (after ECPR Bordeaux), I will conduct necessary interviews in order to understand better the control over public goods and its implication for the Congolese statehood idea.

Bukavu may appear as a diffused city for many foreigners (including the author) in the way that it is overly crowded compared to its capacity and it is not easy to get a sense of what people do as a living and where economic and political decisions are being made. What is clear, however, is that the city is not lacking public officials or those claiming to have or trying to achieve some sort of public authority figure. It is neither lacking in bureaucrats, border officials, (traffic) police and branches of the Congolese armed forces. It is obvious as a visitor that there is a mindset of what 6

Tull (2005, p. 296) terms ‘ritualized, state reproduction’, what for many outsiders seem like ridiculous bureaucratic check points and examination. One such example is the border authorities in Bukavu. As a foreigner, it is often a need for an ‘official’ document like Ordre de Mission to explain the purpose of your travels within the DRC. This accounts to the logic of very routinized and internalized reproduction of statehood. Interestingly enough, those who cross these check points every day, e.g. students walking to school, seem to silently adhere to these routines and rules despite perhaps the sentiment of illegitimacy towards these bureaucrats. As Wild-Wood (2007, p. 373) states, you find yourself “at the mercy of the whims of border authorities.” I would argue that it is not so much “the whims” of border authorities, but the very essence of maintaining state practice and its routines; justifying your existence and negotiating with different types of customers, such as students, white foreigners, business persons etc. Conceivably, it does provide a sense of order in a city that is plague by insecurity and lack of investments in public goods and jobs. As Englebert (2003, p. 6) states: “Populations at large […] value the continued existence of the state despite its abuses, because it offers a structure of predictability that is not associated with guerillas, warlords or secessionist movements.” This perception also fits Mobutu’s view, namely that “[o]ur masses must understand that if every person does what pleases him and seeks to satisfy his ambition, anarchy will be the inevitable result” (Kinshasa, 1972 in P. T. M. Callaghy, 1984, p. 277). It is evident that despite government changes in the capital and instability more generally, these state agents continue more or less their activities as under Mobutu. Moreover, these border authorities are the higher end of state positions as they have the power to control the flows of people, vehicle and goods (import and export). ‘Being flexible’ (être couple) or ‘rate of the day’ (taux de jour) are established Congolese expressions that means to adapt to the opportunities that arises and adapting to your conditions between state agents and population (Trefon, 2007, p. 23).

What is striking about Bukavu, along with other places in the DRC, is the continuation of the political arrangements such as state institutions, rather than a break with the past or a break-down of these establishments however shallow and informal. This is despite major shocks to the society and the country as a whole exemplified with the state coup, neighboring genocide and warfare. This is also despite what many scholars have emphasized about the continuation of foreign and illegitimate colonial structures in Africa (see e.g.Mamdani, 1996). Moreover, the public offices 7

around the urban and semi-urban centers of the DRC still operates with personnel and, though they lack the ability to conduct larger scale projects and most forms of civil services, they do maintain a form of order that prevents others from attacking the authority of the state. In the words of Hansen and Stepputat (2001, p. 17), could the “spectacles and rituals of the state [be] more for internal consumption among bureaucrats, clerks, accountants, officers – a daily, routinized reassurance of the importance and power of the state that actually serves to strengthen the sense of a unified stateness of dispersed forms of government?” In their view, the multiple practices involved in controlling and policing territories and boundaries are what make up the nation-state effect. This also maintains a powerful idea that the state is an essential part of social order in the everyday lives of Congolese citizens and this idea, though far from the outcomes of ‘normative’ state practices, is an imaginative force not to be underestimated. A major challenge to the enforcement of a modern ‘strong state’ is the abrupt poverty in Bukavu. Poverty is felt at different levels and it goes beyond starvation, unemployment and poor health. It is also felt at the level of intellectual capacity, association with other parts of the world, and the ability to see beyond the next day, or even the next hour. In order to think like I Congolese, I was told, try to go hungry for a whole day and “you can begin to understand how we think and feel”.3 Moreover, the access to books or simply electronic journals was beyond reach for the many Bukavuian youth. Whatever books that was available was usually either of Evangelical nature or, judging by the covers, slightly outdated French grammar and lessons books. (The contrast of having access to the LSE library is immense.) When speaking to educated youth about the problems of the most recent and often interpreted as illegitimate election and the status quo of political mismanagement, one argued the following: “You cannot convince illiterate people with a political agenda, they are poor and only understand beans, beer and t-shirts – that’s how they are bought.”

Furthermore, it is common for many Congolese to hold multiple positions; priests becoming politicians, business women and men (private actors) also being politicians, having international networks and/or being active in civil society groups to name a few. In one way, this can be seen as a survival strategy or a source of diversifying livelihood options. Thus, it is a very rational

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Fieldwork in Bukavu, 20 March 2012.

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approach to a very dire situation. Moreover, the possible positions that people may hold reinforce each other in several ways. These positions are not separated, rigid or schematic but changing, opportunistic and dynamic. This will be developed further in the PhD but for now the point to emphasize is that people seeking access to these positions need a network of various people and they often need a background in one arena to access another. Here, people of a privileged ethnic group might seek to control several of these posts to form a network of alliance, control and protection. It should be underlined that Bukavians are not in any way unusual as people tend to have multiple loyalties and interests when it comes to the idea of self, family, the nation, church, class, political position, economy and many other aspects combined with contextual constraints and possibilities. Thus, the case of Bukavu is not an exception from a stable, monotonic world, but the area of interest might challenge some of the categorical and positivistic approaches in the political science literature.

3.1 Controlling roads and traffic One interesting and often discussed public good is the provision and control of roads. In Bukavu, it is more or less only one paved road running through the city and all the way to the airport. The road was built by Chinese engineers under the UN mission MONUSCO. The traffic police are often found in the traffic junctions (“Feux-rouges”, “Place de l’independence” and “Nyawera”), where they stop, harass and intimidate drivers. The traffic police can occupy particularly lucrative posts but they are in turn under daily pressure to deliver a return for their position to the people in charge. These positions, as they are so lucrative, are shifted around if they are not able to satisfy upward to the hierarchy. In the traffic junctions, car owners are regularly stopped to pay informal fines due to e.g. lack of papers for insurance or drivers pay ‘voluntary fees’ in order to get by without much trouble (see also the work of Baaz & Olsson, 2011). For the upcoming fieldwork, the aim is to interview and understand better the situation of these traffic police (as they are often under significant pressure from their superiors), if and how they are linked to the road office (l’Office des Routes) and the national insurance company Sonas (Societe Nationale d’Assurance), which will be discussed briefly below. It will be very useful to interview taxi drivers who are constantly in confrontation with these ‘officers’.

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Sonas, a state agency established in 1967, has the monopoly of insurance in DRC after a law passed on 5 January 1973 during the period of Zairinisation, gave them the absolute right to collect car insurance from all car owners, as well as real estate collection and more (reference). In today’s DRC, they are regularly in court fighting against other agencies, called Scar or BAI, but tend to win these fights on the basis of monopoly rights. It is mandatory to pay for car insurance, but if you crash, you as a car owner take full responsibility. I.e. there is no pay-out if you have an accident. In Bukavu, the Sonas building is one of the nicer looking state agencies. It is freshly painted walls and seems to be well-kept. In short, they appear to have money there, which is very likely considering the revenues from all the car owners in the area. DRC has signed regional agreements with the Southern African Development Cooperation (SADC) which includes insurances that actually pays if you have an accident. This is, however, not sufficient evidence for the authorities in Bukavu. The income from customs and insurance on cars can exceed several thousand dollars, which is considerably a lot of money when the average earnings for the Bukavuian is about 100 $ per month.

Moreover, it will be useful to understand better the conditions for the road office or l’Office des Routes (OR), which is often ridiculed by calling it the l’Office des Trous or the holes office due to the poor conditions of the road. When the infrastructure development appears to be outsourced, whether to UN or private companies in an infrastructure-for-resources swap, what is the point with the road office? How are they sustained and why do people go to work? The director general of the Road Office is quoted in a Radio Okapi article stating something similar to ‘we have everything we need to make roads (limestone, sand, water etc.), why don’t we exploit that opportunity? That is the problem.’ 4

Another aspect to consider is which roads are rehabilitated and why? Moreover, there are good reasons to maintain status quo regarding an underdeveloped infrastructure. According to many Bukavians, the poor quality of roads hinders an easy access to minerals and export in the east. If

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http://radiookapi.net/actualite/2012/12/14/rdc-loffice-des-routes-plaide-pour-la-modernisation-du-reseau-routieravec-les-ressources-locales/

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the roads were developed, both middle men in Bukavu and high-ranking elites in Kinshasa might lose out on revenues. In other words, the central government may have a stake in making use of a weak infrastructure system in order to control more easily the flow of extractive industries.

3.2 Security provision Another public good is the issue of security provision in Bukavu. Here, security is first and foremost understood as classic security sector institutions like the police but also other private security arrangements. One such arrangement is the private security companies that benefit from a situation of post-war instability and the security demands from the UN and internationals based in the area. But beyond the International Community, many Congolese rely daily on private security arrangements with the armed forces and the police. Here, private means that the police are not serving the entire population, but rather informal agreements on policing services for a particular person, group or area (Baker, 2008, p. 26). Such private arrangements do not suit the idea of public goods, which the state is supposed to deliver. Policing in the DRC provides an interesting example of some of the challenges to domestic statehood and why these state practices continue despite their limitations. For the upcoming fieldwork, it will be interesting to interview both public and private security providers. Moreover, I will also attempt to understand better the situation for people living in poorer areas like Kadutu (the slum area) where there is a lot of insecurity. What type of arrangements do they have? Do they rely to some extent on the police through small payments or do they have other security arrangements?

In order to understand better the Congolese police that operates in Bukavu (excluding the traffic police), this section will attempt to map the national structure as well as individual agents with major authority to affect policing more generally. The Congolese National Police (PNC) consists of a mixture of former military officers, ex-combatants from armed groups and various civilians, usually with little or no training in typical police matters and often quite militarized and oppressive in its nature (Nlandu, 2012, p. 27). The PNC is constitutionally under the president of the DRC with responsible ministries such as the Minister of Interior and Security at the national level and should ideally answer to local authorities at the provincial level where they are based. In practice, they may answer for instance only to their own chain of command, operate separately

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or under the authority of other networks, such as the Katanga network where most of president Kabila’s power brokers belong to, as well as generals. There is also a lack of separation between central government and the PNC, where the latter should ideally have more financial and administrative autonomy, but where in practice they are centrally controlled. Moreover, the PNC is separated into several different ‘services’5 including the Rapid Intervention Police (PIR), a special intelligence division (DRGS), traffic police, border police and hygiene and environment police. In addition, there are the Officers de Police Judiciaire (OPJs), which are seen as the “eyes and ears” of the prosecution services since they identify, report and record criminal offences to the prosecutors (Nlandu 2012, p. ??). However, there are overlapping structures in the formal system as well. For instance, the General Directorate for Migration (DGM), also under the Minister of Interior and Security, is an independent policing and surveillance structure that covers all types of inflow and outflow at borders, including immigration policing, border policing and the issuance of visas and passport. Their clearest separation from the PNC is that they are unarmed but their authority over public space is often in conflict. Another example is the National Intelligence Agency (ANR) who is under the Minister of Interior and Security again but answers directly to the president (Nlandu, p. 43). The challenge, however, is that the ANR agents take the role as regular police officers and other agents of the justice system, in order to carry out arrest, detain and seize goods and they can target in particular political opponents, human rights activists and other members of civil society. Their activities are thus found in the DRC’s and former Zaire’s more oppressive traditions and can be the most feared and hated ‘service’ of the security sector. 6 Ironically, the ANR originates from an opponent coalition against Mobutu in 1996, namely Alliance des Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Congo-Zaïre (AFDL), but in many ways follow the tradition of Mobutu’s intelligence apparatus, Service National d'Intelligence et de Protection (SNIP), which means it is set up to protect those in command of the country.

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“Services” is a rather misleading term as the PNC generally represent a source of insecurity rather than a national public service for the population. 6 See for instance journalist reports such as de Silva (20-02-2013) “The ANR: a threat to DR Congo's media freedom” downloaded 30-04-2013 at http://www.dc4mf.org/en/content/anr-threat-dr-congos-media-freedom

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Furthermore, the Congolese state is not the sole provider of policing in the DRC (Baaz, forthcoming), as there is a large presence of international actors involved. Due to the mistrust of Congolese government and the Minister of Interior and Security in particular, these international actors and donors, mainly the EU (EUSEC) and the UN (MONUSCO), as well as donor-aid from the UK development agency DfID, have created supra-national structures of security sector support that answers to the donors rather than the national ministries. One such example is the Community Policing service (Police de Proximité or PdP) established in 2009 to deal with dayto-day civilian challenges in conflict zones and generally behave according to standards of a “true” public service. As money does not go through the government, the Congolese ministries may use political capital to marginalize the donor-supported police division. The actual power brokers are not particularly interested in reform of the security or other sectors of the government. Rather, they have what Prunier (2008, p. 315) calls “a vested interest in personally fruitful stagnation.”

When it comes to both private and public disputes, there is a tendency to turn to the military rather than police (Baaz, forthcoming). Moreover, in urban centers like Bukavu where there are people who can afford it, there is a tendency of hiring police, soldiers or private company security guards (Schatzberg, 1991, p. 62).

A major source of revenue in the post-war context is the private security companies rented through the international community. The two main private security companies in Bukavu are Delta security (national, but owned by a French ex-military) and KK security (Kenya). The UN is the major consumer of these private security arrangements and they hold the guidelines for which companies to choose and not to choose. The vetted list is usually what the international staff follows and thus affects who get these contracts and who does not. The Delta and KK guards are on average paid very low, varying from 100-200 $ per month and do not have food or water with them during their long shifts. Some employers provide the guards with food and water, but many ex-pats remain blissfully ignorant to their wretched working conditions. There are without doubt hierarchies of income and it is very likely that some are making big money out of private security in areas considered risky for foreigners by UN standards. The average sum paid to the security company is about 8-900 $ per month per guard and it is not clear what the 600 $ or so goes to; a 13

large sum when considering the many security guards around Bukavu. A question to ask is why do not the individuals interested in hiring security guards pay the full sum directly to the guards and have a one-on-one deal? In that way they would get a good salary and perhaps be more motivated to work and do their job when required. There are obviously some networks involved here that keeps the system in check.

For the upcoming fieldwork, I will conduct interviews on the above mentioned agencies as well as the topic of water and sanitation (including garbage collection) and potentially electricity issues in Bukavu. I will stay pragmatic to what kind of public goods I will investigate further, as it depends on among other things opportunities, contacts and personal connections.

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4.0 Discussion and conclusion: Congolese statehood and the use and abuse of a weak state system “Ce n’est plus l’État qui encadre la population mais la population qui prend en charge les fonctionnaires.”7

This section engages in a brief discussion on some of the broader PhD ideas concerning how public authorities and civil servants provide or hinder access to public goods and how this complement, challenge and/or contradicts the normative ideas of empirical statehood. First and foremost, I would argue that it is not so much the lack of authorities, norms and rules but rather a plurality and competing arrangements that challenges the more unified ideal of the domestic statehood. Yet, the power of the state authorities should not be underestimated. All these actors within, at the interface and outside the bureaucratic apparatus make use of a so-called weak state system, paraphrasing Hagmann and Péclard (2010, pp. 542-543). Moreover, and perhaps more powerful is the very idea and notion of the state and what it should be that seems deeply rooted in the Congolese mindset. Congolese often joke about the inability of the political leadership, the various infrastructure problems and lack of public goods, but I have so far not encountered anyone opposing the state as an institutional arrangement and an alternative society with no state. Yet, there are specificities to the state practices in the DRC that are not fitting positivist models of governance, which often does not acknowledge the fluctuation and the informal practices that cannot be quantified. By acknowledging the way in which domestic statehood is very differently interpreted from the actors involved, scholars can begin to engage in inductive theory-building. As Sartori (1970, p. 1034) and many others have argued, the terminology in political science is largely bound to political experience from the Western hemisphere. I would also add that political experience is given meaning based on norms, practice and cultural interpretation. Furthermore, scholars have previously asked the question similar to “where does the state stop?” relating to rural/urban or capital/not capital city in widely different African countries like Central African Republic, Tanzania and Uganda (see Bierschenk & Sardan, 1997; Hydén, 1980; Jones, 2009 respectively ). Whether or not this is an idealization of ‘non-state’ societies or a critique of 7

«It is no longer the state that oversees the population but the population that takes care of the public servants.” A popular Congolese perception captured by Trefon (2007, pp. 20-21).

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the state-centric focus, the question is a pertinent one as there are obvious differences with overstocked public offices in the city centers and the more state-absent rural areas. In the case of the latter there are many alternatives to what is often assumed to be the domain of the state like social, education and health services, in addition to administration and justice aspects (Bierschenk & Sardan, 1997, p. 441). This is true, however, also within urban spaces. These spaces are perhaps visually crowded with public authorities or those claiming power through state-like symbols (uniform, flag, stamps etc.), but their role as public servants are quite limited when it comes to actually delivering the public goods that are often associated with state practice. Instead, these traditional state practices like education, garbage collection, and monopoly of violence may be sub-contracted or outsources to alternative actors and organizations. This can be private security companies, international humanitarian organizations or simply more or less informal networks in Bukavu.

One interesting example of the semi-outsourced state performance practice was the organization Performance Purchasing Agency (AAP) in Bukavu, funded by the Dutch Catholic Organisation for Relief and Development Aid (Cordaid). In an interview with these representatives (11 April 2012, Bukavu), they explained how they, through the support by Cordaid, paid the local state representatives for well performed jobs within education, health, police, justice and much more. As they explained, the program is set out to “buy good state performance” (ibid), as the state is not able to pay salaries to their servants. In a way, the program is rather innovative compared to more traditional development aid that pays for building a new school and buying school books for instance. The paradox nevertheless remains; a Congolese non-governmental organization pays for good state practice by the Congolese authorities and public servants. Though outsourcing or sub-contracting the deliverance of ‘public goods’ is nothing new in a global context, what does this mean for the domestic statehood in the DRC and how does it furthermore challenge the way scholar understand state practice and ideal state behavior? Answer this question will form a larger part of the analysis in the final version of the PhD. Moreover, the so-called “weak state” in the DRC serves many purposes for people in public administration functions, what Trefon (2007) as mentioned in the introduction calls “the administrative career in a failed state”. Though Trefon’s study is from southern DRC 16

(Lubumbashi) his claim is equally relevant for Bukavu, namely that public goods (water, roads, trains in his case), continue to be delivered though with low or varying quality. Here, the negotiations or bargaining over public services is what matters, showing how state agents and citizens are in constant negotiations on deliverance of these precious goods. The administrative paths chosen by the state agents will differ according to the bargaining power of actors.

Furthermore, there is a deep complexity when it comes to the alliances, networks and the history of individual actors at the central and provincial government level in the DRC. An unspoken rule in the state apparatus is that the unofficial or official advisors to the ministers are often more powerful than the ministers themselves (see e.g. Prunier, 2008, p. 150). This unofficial state practice is neatly described by Belgian journalist Colette Braeckman when she asked former president Laurent Kabila about who actually is in charge of the army and their command structure: “We are not going to expose ourselves and risk being destroyed by showing ourselves openly… We are careful so that the true masters of the army are not known. It is strategic. Please, let us drop the matter” ('Le Soir', October 31 - November 2 1997, translated by and recaptured in Prunier, p. 150). Though keeping in mind that this was quoted soon after Kabila’s state coup and the DRC was at the brink of a new war, the classic example of Dahl (1963) and his question “who actually governs?” come to mind. Revealing the deep workings of state practice in a weak state system may be a death sentence to the careers of those involved. It is hope in the final PhD version that I will be able to discuss less politically tense networks and alliances when it comes to deliverance of the public goods.

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