Citation

Clark JF. Afr. Secur. 2011; 4(3): 147-170.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2011, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/19392206.2011.599262

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Although the recent encyclopedic studies of the Congo wars provide us with detailed narratives of how the wars began and myriad proximate causes, none presents an overall account of how these wars could happen. This article attempts to provide an overall account of the Congo wars using a simplified constructivist analytical framework. The account does not claim to explain the Congo wars, but rather it tries to identify a context in which they can be understood. It draws on the vocabulary of the variety of constructivism outlined by Nicolas Onuf, a variety of the epistemological approach that is particularly useful for understanding the changes in the regional rules that permitted the Congo wars to begin. Namely, Onuf's focus on the rules that emerge from a dialectical interaction of relevant agents and structures is invaluable in understanding how the Congo wars could happen. These concepts help us understand how the end of the Cold War in Africa led to rapid changes in the (constructed) identities and interests of local agents and the rules that governed them. Changes in the rules constituting the identities of local agents also gave rise to a change in the norms governing relations among the key agents, African regimes. In particular, the (weak) inter-African norm against nonintervention in the affairs of neighboring states suddenly became much weaker than before. In this context, the Yoweri Museveni regime of Uganda facilitated an invasion by the Rwandan Patriotic Army of Rwandan territory in October 1990. This key, early act had a catalytic effect on changing identities in the Great Lakes region and pushed ahead the process of norm reformulation. Soon, intervention by regimes in the region into the affairs of their neighbors had become the norm, leading to the long-lasting foreign intervention in Congo. These foreign interventions set off local conflicts that continue to the present day. The new rules have implications that go far beyond the case of Congo and seem to be manifest in a number of other cases.