Building the Rule of War: Postconflict Institutions and the Micro-Dynamics of Conflict in Eastern DR Congo

Abstract

Why have peace-building and reconstruction efforts so frequently failed to create durable institutions that can deter or withstand resurgent violence in volatile sites of cyclical conflict? Extant theory predicts that new institutions can help overcome violence and mitigate commitment problems in postconflict contexts by reducing uncertainty in inherently uncertain environments. By contrast, this article argues that postconflict institutions often prove limited in their abilities to contribute to durable peace because they offer wartime elites new venues in which to pursue conflict-era agendas. Through a micro-analysis of efforts to build the rule of law in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, I demonstrate that wartime elites capture and instrumentalize new legal institutions to maximize their intra- and inter-organizational survival; to pursue economic, military, and political agendas behind the scenes; and, in some cases, to prepare for an imminent return to war.

Institutional trust and misinformation in the response to the 2018–19 Ebola outbreak in North Kivu, DR Congo: a population-based survey

“…The EVD outbreak is occurring in an active conflict zone, where low institutional trust is linked to a long-term decline in security and political confidence. 24,25 We identified low levels of trust in government institutions and widespread belief in misinformation about EVD. Exposure to violence reduces political trust in general.…”

Deploying Justice: Strategic Accountability for Wartime Sexual Violence

“…This is particularly important not only because sexual violence is uniquely exploitable in these cases, but because international and scholarly interventions into conflict-related sexual violence often highlight domestic legal accountability as a primary solution (see Advocacy Forum-Nepal 2017; de Brouwer 2015;Seelinger, Silverberg, and Mejia 2014). Undoubtedly, domestic prosecutions are a welcome complimentor alternativeto international courts, local accountability can be transformative for violence survivors, and domestic legal systems are often best equipped to adjudicate internal human rights abuses (Lake 2014b;Lake 2017;Seelinger 2014). Still, our findings expose the need to scrutinize domestic engagement with human rights norms and to examine government inaction in response to atrocities.…”

“…7 We integrate the lawfare and power politics literatures to illuminate the Sri Lankan case dynamics. We show that shifting trajectories of conflict can determine when and why human rights-violating governments strategically engage with 7 We join Loyle and Binningsbø (2016) and others in noting that, while armed conflict is ultimately about violent interaction between combatant groups, groups pursue variety of policies in conjunction with violence that contribute to the course of the conflict and its outcomes (Binningsbø, Loyle, Gates, and Elster 2012;Lake 2017;Loyle and Binningsbø 2016;Simmons 2016). These may include the use of judicial and quasi-judicial processes to advance political or military goals.…”

The Status of Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care in Post-Conflict Eastern DRC: A Facility-Level Cross-Sectional Study.

“…The eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was disproportionately affected by protracted armed con ict in the country. This region suffered higher preventable mortality, including neonatal mortality, re ecting the impact of con ict on public health (27,28). In the North Kivu Province, where most of the state-based con ict events (i.e., pitting government troops against foreign-backed rebel groups) occurred between 2006-2013 in eastern DRC (29), maternal mortality was as high as 790 deaths per 100,000 live births for the rst half of 2013 (30).…”