The State and Human Security in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Abstract.

This is the abstract to the researches that were conducted by Kudakwashe Kanhutu of Mashonaland Central (Zimbabwe), in fulfilment of the requirements of his Master of Science in Defence, Development & Diplomacy degree at Durham University in England. He will publish his full researches in the hope that he will instruct his fellow countrymen that when brother fights brother, no one wins but the outsider.

Zimbabwe: Pax Africana! The cover of my thesis is a tribute to my brother who fought in the DRC War.

Dedication 

To the people of Zimbabwe, may our peaceful polity long continue! 

Kudakwashe Kanhutu, Hatfield College, Durham University, School of Government & International Affairs, September 2014. 

Abstract 

The recurring civil wars and deaths of civilians from preventable causes in the DRC forms the puzzle for this paper: why has the state remained so weak over such a long period? This paper has cast the inability by the state's institutions to provide human security as state weakness. Human security is then used as a lens to interrogate where the international community and the local elites, through commission or omission, have been culpable for state weakness in the DRC. Human security is argued to be achievable under conditions where the state is legitimate and has a monopoly on the use of force - a strong state. This point necessitates a comparison between conditions faced by the consolidated European states in their creation and those which now confront the post-colonial states. The reasons for state weakness here are then argued to be on two levels: the international level and the state level. At the international level, the continued extractive relationship with the global North and the actions of the DRC's neighbours are inimical to the state's ability to maintain a monopoly on the use of force. At the state level, the most significant cause is the self-defeating short term strategies adopted by post-colonial elites to consolidate their power at independence. This paper argues that the ideal Weberian state, with its impersonal institutions, is the best possible way of achieving human security in the DRC and other post-colonial states. Human security provision would then be the remedy to legitimacy crises that arise due to the colonial legacy.

Professor David Held, who helped me formulate, even though I say so myself, an elegant thesis.